Apple’s CEO Hints That Heavy Use of Siri AI Could Cost You

Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted during Apple's quarterly earnings call on Thursday that heavy use of the upcoming Siri AI assistant could lead to an upgrade charge as part of iCloud Plus, saying 'We do believe there will be people that want to use it a lot, and so we will have some kind of upgrade possibilities on iCloud Plus.' Cook, in his last earnings call before John Ternus takes over as CEO, noted the plans are in early stages and did not provide details, while Apple has announced Siri AI will be available on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and VisionOS 27.

Siri AI https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/siri-ai-ios-27-early-review/ is coming soon. The redesign of Apple’s voice assistant was first unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference https://www.cnet.com/wwdc/ in June. Since then, the buzz has been all about what to expect from the new Siri 2.0. But Siri AI may cost you, at least if you use it a lot. Outgoing CEO Tim Cook https://www.cnet.com/tech/tim-cook-final-apple-earnings-call-iphone-sales-pricing-woes/ hinted at a possible upcharge during Apple’s quarterly earnings call https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx on Thursday. Cook was asked about iOS 27, Apple Intelligence, feedback from the public beta and how Apple is thinking about compute costs and the ability to recover those costs through iCloud Plus https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/icloud-storage-full-yet-again-heres-a-fast-fix/ . He suggested the possibility of charging for Siri AI as a part of the iCloud Plus application stack. “We do believe there will be people that want to use it a lot, and so we will have some kind of upgrade possibilities on iCloud Plus,” Cook said. He added that those ideas are in the early stages and did not discuss a complete plan. Apple’s team is “off-the-charts excited about Siri AI,” he added, saying feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far. The earnings call, Cook’s last before John Ternus takes over as CEO, comes weeks after Apple announced price increases https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apple-price-increases-music-one-bundle-subscriptions/ for Apple Music and Apple One subscription bundle. Apple has said the new AI-powered virtual assistant will be available on iOS 27 https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apple-wwdc-ios-27-announcement/ , iPadOS 27 https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/ipados-27-brings-more-intelligence-to-apples-ipad-line/ , MacOS 27 https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/macos-27-golden-gate/ and VisionOS 27 https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/apple-visionos-wwdc-2026/ . You can expect Siri AI https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/siri-ai-wwdc-2026/ to have its own app, customization, Visual Intelligence https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/apple-vision-pro-siri-visionos-27-visual-intelligence/ and a new design. Examples of Siri’s new capabilities include being able to find out about the latest concert, how to get tickets and remind you when it’s time to buy them. Other features include finding information in your messages e.g. “Call the eye doctor who messaged me” , creating a photo album specifically for a loved one that includes photos of them, and even identifying a place from a picture. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.