Apple seeks publisher content for Siri AI
Reports indicate Apple is negotiating multi-year agreements with news outlets to secure content access for its redesigned Siri, marking a shift from the guaranteed fees typical of competitors.
Apple is in active negotiations with news publishers to secure access to their content for its redesigned Siri AI, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal. The technology giant is reportedly proposing multi-year deals with a variable compensation structure, where payments to media organisations would be tied directly to the usage of their material by the assistant.
This approach contrasts with the standard practices of other major artificial intelligence laboratories. Competitors such as OpenAI have typically offered guaranteed fees in exchange for broad access to training data. The Wall Street Journal noted that while Apple has previously paid publishers for content access as part of earlier agreements to secure AI training rights, the current proposal represents a distinct shift in how the company intends to compensate media partners.
The negotiations come as Apple prepares for the public release of the updated Siri, which is scheduled to debut with iOS 27 later this year. The company first announced the redesigned assistant at WWDC 2024, though the project faced delays before resurfacing at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple has developed the new Siri in partnership with Google, utilising distilled versions of the company’s Gemini models to power the assistant’s capabilities.
Early testing of the system by Engadget suggests the new Siri is a significant improvement over the current version available to consumers, although preliminary observations indicate there is still room for improvement. The push to integrate fresh news and information into the assistant highlights Apple’s effort to enhance the relevance and utility of its personal assistant ahead of the upcoming software update.
The move occurs against a backdrop of evolving tensions between technology platforms and content creators regarding the use of proprietary data for AI training. In a related development earlier this month, Twitch introduced an opt-out toggle allowing streamers to prevent Amazon from using their content to train generative AI models, reflecting the broader industry debate over data rights and compensation.
While the specific publishers Apple has approached have not been identified, the variable compensation model signals a potential change in the financial dynamics between tech platforms and the media industry. The exact terms of these deals remain undisclosed, but the focus on usage-based payments suggests Apple is seeking to align costs with the actual value derived from publisher content.
