When Samsung announced Galaxy AI alongside the S24 line of phones, the company said in fine print that the service will be free until 2025. It remains to be seen what the South Korean tech giant will charge customers after that point. Similarly, Apple Intelligence is expected to not be free forever either, and while it’s still unclear when the bitten fruit will start charting, an analyst has already predicted what that cost will be.
CNBC cites Counterpoint Research partner Neil Shah as saying that Apple Intelligence may cost between US$10 (~RM44) and US$20 (~RM89). Though this could be offered as part of the Apple One subscription, which costs just about as much on its own as it is right now. For context, the subscription starts from RM19.90 locally. Justifying the high predicted price, Shah is reported to have said that “investment in AI is expensive and Apple will want to pass that cost onto its users”.
Also cited in the report is CCS Insight research chief Ben Wood, who said that “Apple is one of the few connected devices companes that has successfully monetised the value-added services it offers”. As such, the company is incentivised to charge for “more premium services“. This may mean that some Apple Intelligence features will be available for free, while others must be paid for. This would be similar to OpenAI’s current ChatGPT model, with the paid version being a lot more capable in comparison to the free one.
At any rate, the availability of Apple Intelligence itself has suffered a slight delay. Initially slated to be released alongside iOS 18, it has now been pushed back to iOS 18.1. The company probably wouldn’t start charging immediately for the better features, but it remains to be seen if that’s truly the case.
(Source: CNBC)
