Apple wants to pay the press per answer, not per year
The Wall Street Journal reported on 12 August that Apple has approached news publishers about multiyear agreements to feed current news into the AI version of Siri it plans to ship with iOS 27 later this year. The unusual part is the structure: rather than a flat annual licence, Apple has floated paying each time Siri actually uses a publisher's material, with a possible nine-figure budget behind the programme. Apple has not commented, no publisher has been named, and no agreement has been confirmed. The company already has publisher relationships through Apple News+ and has negotiated content rights for AI training before.
Why it mattersMost AI content deals so far have been fixed sums for broad access — predictable money for the publisher, effectively unlimited use for the model. Paying per use flips where the risk sits: a newsroom earns only when its reporting is the answer, which rewards being the outlet people ask about today and pays very little for a deep archive. If Apple lands this at scale it becomes the structure every other lab gets asked about in its next round of negotiations, and it hands publishers a number the industry has never had: what a single answer is worth.
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