Apple Plans Paid iCloud+ Upgrades for Heavy AI Users
Apple is planning to let users pay to increase their AI limits, with upgrade possibilities available through iCloud+.
During today's earnings call for the third fiscal quarter of 2026, Apple CEO Tim Cook said it's early, but the company expects to offer options for people who want to make heavy use of AI services.
In terms of what it means for compute cost, it's obviously early going for us, and so I don't want to say that we have a complete plan for that. We do believe there will be people that want to use it a lot and we will have some kind of upgrade possibilities on iCloud+ where people can buy up the stack on iCloud+. We'll see how the pickup for that is.
At WWDC, Apple said there would be daily usage limits on features like Image Playground, but increased access would be available through iCloud+ plans. Cook's comments today suggest there may also be iCloud+ add-ons specifically for AI usage.
Apple hasn't offered any details on what it might charge to increase AI limits, and that's information that we might get when iOS 27 launches in September. Features like Siri AI are expected to remain free to use.
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