Apple Made $900 Million From AI in 2025 Without Building a Single AI Product

Apple is late to the AI game. The company tried its hand with Apple Intelligence, but it kind of fell flat. However, despite that, it seems that Apple is still making bank on AI. This is because of AI apps, in which according to analysis firm AppMagic, Apple made $900 million from generative AI apps in 2025.

Apple is making bank off AI apps in 2025

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, it cites AppMagic who claims Apple made a whopping $900 million off generative AI apps back in 2025. That’s a lot of money, especially considering that Apple has almost nothing to do with it (unless you count hosting the apps in the App Store).

But how, you ask? Simple: commissions. As you might know, companies like Apple and Google take a cut from apps sold in their app store. They also take a cut from in-app purchases, which includes in-game cosmetics, in-game currencies, and yes, even subscriptions.

Based on AppMagic’s estimates, OpenAI’s ChatGPT accounted for 75% of the total commissions, while Grok accounted for 5%. This means that the bulk of commissions Apple is making from these AI apps comes from OpenAI. As the WSJ points out, that’s a lot of money for a company that isn’t exactly playing in the same space.

Yes, we know that Apple is trying to improve its position in AI, but its efforts so far have been lackluster. However, making $900 million just from AI apps in 2025 is a pretty good consolation prize, we think. It’s also rather clever, although we’re not sure if this was by design.

This is because while companies are pouring billions into AI, building new models, setting up data centers, purchasing expensive hardware like GPUs and HBM, Apple is quietly enjoying the fruits of the labor of others.

Apple’s AI push

That being said, Apple hasn’t given up on its AI ambitions yet. The company is working on a revamped version of Siri, its virtual assistant. This new version of Siri will be powered by AI, and interestingly enough, it will use Google’s Gemini model. Apple is reportedly licensing Gemini from Google to the tune of about $1 billion a year.

That’s around as much as Google pays Apple to keep its search engine the default on Safari. However, seeing as Gemini is also available on the App Store with subscriptions to Google’s own AI Pro plans, there’s a good chance that $1 billion is being offset from those commissions as well.