Good news — paying for Apple Intelligence could still be three years away

Apple Intelligence beta
(Image credit: Future / Apple)

Were you worried about rumors of Apple charging for Apple Intelligence? Well, there’s some good news: Apple Intelligence+ features might not be coming until at least 2027.

In his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has estimated that premium paid Apple Intelligence features won’t be coming to Apple’s best iPhones and other products for at least three years.

He said, “It may take time for Apple to actually execute on it. Apple Intelligence’s existing features are still so nascent that I’d bet it will take three years for Apple to develop something worth charging for,” following up from rumors last week that Apple would charge for the AI features in the future.

Apple Intelligence is set to arrive with iOS 18.1 in October following the release of iOS 18 and iPhone 16. The new AI-powered features include summarizing tools, proofreading, and rewriting as well as Image Playground and Genmoji to generate images directly from the operating system.

More to come for Apple Intelligence

Next year, Apple Intelligence will improve with the addition of Siri 2.0, the next generation of the voice assistant that is not only far more capable but is also aware of personal context and what’s on your device’s screen.

With rumors of paid Apple Intelligence features in the future, we expect to see Apple continuously build on the fundamentals of its artificial intelligence throughout the course of the next few years.

Charging for more capable AI models and features is nothing new, ChatGPT currently offers a Plus service for $19.99/month. Those premium features include access to GPT-4, the ability to generate images with DALL-E, and use, create, and share custom GPTs.

If Apple were to take this approach we could see a new LLM built to rival ChatGPT’s chatbot capabilities, allowing subscribers to use Apple’s own powerful models instead of accessing ChatGPT through Siri.

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John-Anthony Disotto
How To Editor

John-Anthony Disotto is the How To Editor of iMore, ensuring you can get the most from your Apple products and helping fix things when your technology isn’t behaving itself. Living in Scotland, where he worked for Apple as a technician focused on iOS and iPhone repairs at the Genius Bar, John-Anthony has used the Apple ecosystem for over a decade and prides himself in his ability to complete his Apple Watch activity rings. John-Anthony has previously worked in editorial for collectable TCG websites and graduated from The University of Strathclyde where he won the Scottish Student Journalism Award for Website of the Year as Editor-in-Chief of his university paper. He is also an avid film geek, having previously written film reviews and received the Edinburgh International Film Festival Student Critics award in 2019.  John-Anthony also loves to tinker with other non-Apple technology and enjoys playing around with game emulation and Linux on his Steam Deck.

In his spare time, John-Anthony can be found watching any sport under the sun from football to darts, taking the term “Lego house” far too literally as he runs out of space to display any more plastic bricks, or chilling on the couch with his French Bulldog, Kermit.