While Apple Intelligence will be free in the initial stages of its rollout, Apple could look to monetise some of its more advanced features over time.
The company could offer Apple Intelligence+ and charge users a monthly fee to access certain enhanced features, reports Bloomberg’s Marc Gurman.
Additionally, Apple can get a percentage of the subscription revenue from every AI partner that it brings onto that platform.
Apple Intelligence isn’t scheduled to reach iPhones, iPads, and Macs until later this year. As Apple gets more users to sign up for the service, it could then leverage that to offer additional features and functionality for a monthly subscription fee, a little like what it already is doing with iCloud.
At this stage, there is no indication of what exact form the potential subscription model could take, what it would offer, or how much it could cost.
As Apple devices get more sophisticated each year, it could prove to be a double-edged sword as users will be more reticent to trade-in their devices each year as the one they’ve got has enough functionality to meet their needs.
Apple will therefore seek to pivot its income streams from people upgrading their devices to instead those paying for enhanced software subscription models – in effect monetising its software over hardware as the life cycles of its devices begin to extend.
Support for older devices is already evident in that iOS 11 will reportedly be able to use Apple Intelligence, even though it is being primed for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and MacOS Sierra.
Pivoting to a software-based revenue stream means that Apple would have to do less to convince its users to invest in nearly A$2,900 devices each year and instead have them pay much less for software upgrades.
Apple will, of course, still pursue users of its older devices to upgrade to the latest hardware. For example, while seven-year-old Macs will still be able to run the upcoming macOS Sierra, other features like Game Mode and iPhone Mirroring will still require newer hardware.
It’s important to note here that efforts by Apple to monetise Apple Intelligence will also quite certainly come under the magnifying glass of regulators such as those in the EU which are already pulling up Apple for anticompetitive practices. Apple has already indicated that its Apple Intelligence will likely not be available to users in the EU at least this year with speculation being that Apple is aware that its new AI features won’t fully comply with new regulatory measures in the EU including the Digital Markets Act.
