Apple is in discussions with news publishers over new, multiyear content deals designed to give its Siri voice assistant access to current news and information, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter.

The proposed deals would help power a forthcoming Siri AI overhaul expected to roll out later this year. Apple has approached publishers in recent months and put forward a variable compensation structure under which payments would be triggered only when a publisher's content is actually used to generate a Siri response, rather than through a flat guaranteed fee. The company has also discussed a possible nine-figure budget for the arrangement, the people said.

Apple declined to comment on the discussions.

The pay-as-used model marks a departure from the standard licensing framework that has emerged between large AI companies and news organisations elsewhere in the industry, which typically guarantees fees in exchange for broad access to a publisher's archive regardless of how much of that content ends up being used in practice. If Apple's approach proves workable at scale, it could set a template that other AI developers look to adopt.

No confirmed dollar figure has been finalised, leaving the direct financial impact on individual publishers uncertain pending the outcome of negotiations.

The push to secure live news content comes as Apple works to make Siri meaningfully more capable, following years of criticism that the assistant has lagged behind rival AI products. At its Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2024, Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence, a system-wide AI initiative designed to bring generative AI capabilities — including enhanced writing tools, image generation, and a more conversational Siri — across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The overhaul is part of a broader effort to close the gap with competitors such as Google's Gemini assistant and OpenAI's ChatGPT voice features, both of which have set a higher bar for natural-language interaction. Apple is treating the Siri rebuild as a genuine competitive priority rather than a cosmetic update.

Apple is not new to paying for content access. The company has previously reached agreements with publishers that included rights to use material for AI training purposes. Separately, Apple has operated its Apple News+ subscription service since 2019, a programme that has generated meaningful revenue for a number of participating news and magazine publishers over the years, though some publishers have since chosen to withdraw from the arrangement.

If the new Siri-focused deals proceed, they would extend Apple's publisher relationships beyond subscription bundles and training-data agreements into live, current-events content — a category that carries particular value for an AI assistant designed to answer real-time questions accurately.

The discussions also add another data point to a broader industry trend of AI platforms striking commercial deals with publishers rather than relying solely on scraped or trained-in content. That shift has been accelerated by legal pressure: several major publishers, including The New York Times, have filed lawsuits against AI companies alleging unauthorised use of copyrighted material, making voluntary licensing arrangements increasingly attractive as a way to reduce litigation risk. For media companies navigating the evolving relationship between journalism and artificial intelligence, these deals have become a modest but growing revenue line.

Under the proposed usage-based model, more of the financial risk would shift onto publishers compared with guaranteed-fee arrangements. However, the structure could ultimately reward outlets whose content proves most useful to Siri's underlying AI system, creating a potential incentive for publishers to produce material that the assistant frequently surfaces in response to user queries.