You Won’t Need to Pay for Apple Intelligence Anytime Soon

Despite several analyst reports that Apple will eventually charge for access to Apple Intelligence features, it’s unlikely it plans to do so anytime soon.

While many, including Mark Gurman, believe that Apple’s focus on growing its services business makes a paid Apple Intelligence tier inevitable, the Bloomberg analyst is also convinced this won’t be coming in the near future — and that it’s unlikely to encompass any of the Apple Intelligence features that are slated to arrive in iOS 18 over the next year.

In late June, Gurman suggested an “Apple Intelligence+” tier could eventually arrive with a monthly fee, but it would most likely consist of extra new features rather than putting things like Siri personal context, Image Playground, and Genmoji behind a paywall.

More analysts chimed in last week to suggest a $20 monthly price tag, although it seems like they’re pulling that number out of thin air based on what they feel the market will bear. For example, OpenAI charges $20 per month for its ChatGPT Plus subscription, but that’s not a fair comparison to what Apple is likely to do since OpenAI’s paid plans are about providing higher usage limits more than additional features.

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However, amidst all this speculation, Gurman has offered an important point of clarification. While he maintains in his latest Power On newsletter that a paid Apple Intelligence tier will eventually arrive, he also emphasizes that it will be years before Apple is ready to go there.

That’s because Gurman doesn’t expect Apple Intelligence to be a mature product that people will be willing to pay for before 2027 — and he calls that a “best-case scenario.”

Apple isn’t foolish enough to try to charge high fees for something that’s not ready for prime time. Say what you will about Apple TV+ when it first launched in 2019, but even though it had a limited catalog of content, and what was there may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, it still had some big-name talent on board. It also launched at a much lower price than any other streaming service — a price it later admitted was deliberately set low to reflect the smaller amount of content available at launch.

Apple Intelligence is arguably launching early in response to the AI hype, but it will be well into 2025 before it offers everything that Apple showed us during its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

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The second iOS 18.1 beta came out earlier this week with preliminary Apple Intelligence features, which still excludes the really fun stuff like Genmoji and Image Playground. Those might be ready by the time iOS 18.1 gets released in October, but ChatGPT integration probably won’t show up until iOS 18.2, and we already know that the more powerful Siri and personal context features aren’t likely to appear until iOS 18.4.

Then there’s the wrinkle that Apple Intelligence is only available in the US English and is restricted in the European Union and China due to regulatory issues. Apple has promised to add more languages over the next year, but there’s no word on when those will show up, and while it’s also working on the regulatory hurdles, that could take even longer.

As it stands now, Apple Intelligence may not be fully baked until iOS 19 arrives next year, and even then, it’s hard to imagine Apple being ready to add even more features that will be worth charging for.

Lastly, it’s important to remember that everything that’s been said about Apple charging for Apple Intelligence is educated speculation, at best. Apple has not even hinted that it will try to monetize any of these features directly from end users. It’s likely getting a cut from ChatGPT subscriptions made through Apple Intelligence, but that’s a typical arrangement for every in-app subscription.

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That’s in contrast to Emergency SOS via satellite. When Apple launched that in 2022 with the iPhone 14 lineup, it made it clear that it could eventually start charging for satellite access, promising iPhone 14 owners only two years of free access. It has yet to say what will happen when that time is up, but it’s already extended that into late 2025, matching the two years that new iPhone 15 buyers would have received at launch. Only Apple knows when or if it will charge for satellite access, but it’s left the door open to do so. That’s not the case with Apple Intelligence.

While Apple is undoubtedly looking at ways it can grow its services business, it’s not trying to turn everything into a subscription service, and rumors of a paid Apple Intelligence+ tier could end up carrying as much weight as earlier rumors of things like Apple Mail+ and Apple Health+.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]

Artificial Intelligence is Taking on More Tasks, and This Can Help HVAC Office Workers Get More Done

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It may not be able wield a broom just yet, but artificial intelligence (AI) is fast becoming a jack-of-most-trades for HVAC contracting businesses.

AI can be employed as a dispatch manager, a job estimator, a business coach, a marketing assistant, even a bill collector — and more. At one field-service software company that incorporates AI, Workiz Inc., the goal is to “automate everything that does not involve a wrench,” said Didi Azaria, the CEO.

Didi Azaria of Workiz

“This guiding principle ensures that our solutions free HVACR contractors from administrative burdens, allowing them to focus on the hands-on, technical work that requires their expertise,” Azaria said.

The newer forms of ready-to-use AI have captured the public’s imagination, and HVAC contractors would do well to get into the game if they haven’t already, experts say.

“Start learning what this can do for you. Spend 20 minutes a week, 30 minutes a week,” said Joshua Crouch, the founder of Relentless Digital, a marketing firm for field-service businesses. “Don’t bury your head in the sand.”

Office Assistant

Companies like Workiz and ServiceTitan offer programs that use AI for a variety of office tasks common to a contracting business, from taking customers’ information when they call, to scheduling and dispatching technicians to respond to calls in an effective way that best suits the contractor, to analyzing those calls and finding additional opportunities in them.

At Workiz, the AI in its Call Insights tool transcribes and analyzes customer calls and pulls out vital information from each, such as the job type, job pricing, the customer’s address, and any customer inquiries. It also highlights important points in the calls, summarizes them, and suggests follow-up, such as opportunities for upselling, customer concerns that need to be further addressed, and issues that might call for employee training.

Click to enlarge

STREAMLINED SERVICE: A screenshot of a conversation being monitored with the Workiz Call Insights tool, which transcribes and analyzes customer calls and pulls out vital information from each. (Courtesy of Workiz)

“This helps HVACR contractors quickly understand customer needs and respond appropriately, saving time and ensuring no opportunities are missed,” Azaria said.

Workiz also uses AI for scheduling optimization and smart messaging, and in a tool, Genius Leads, that automatically processes orders for warranty work and other sources of leads, integrating them directly into the contractor’s customer relationship management (CRM) software, Azaria said.

Anmol Bhasin of ServiceTitan

ServiceTitan’s automated dispatch tool, Dispatch Pro, uses AI to not only map out which technician is tackling which job, but to do so in a way that’s customized for each contractor’s preferences, said Anmol Bhasin, the company’s chief technical officer.

For example, Bhasin said, maximizing margins might be a priority for one contractor on a given day, while another might want to minimize the time technicians spend on the road, and a third might want to complete as many outstanding service calls as possible that day. In each case, he said, the Dispatch Pro algorithm can be customized so that its outcomes provide an optimal path for achieving a specific goal.

Add features such as monitoring calls, coaching employees, and suggesting financing options when a customer mentions that possibility, and AI turns a contractors’ office employees into “superhumans,” Bhasin said.

“Basically, with the same capacity, we can actually save capacity — human labor available, or the human bandwidth available,” he said. “We are now able to do far more than historically possible.”

ServiceTitan’s AI can even work on accounts receivable, writing reminder emails to customers with outstanding invoices. The messages can vary in tone based on factors like the amount owed and the contractor’s relationship with that specific customer. The customer with a $5,000 overdue bill might get an email with a sterner tone than one with, say, just $500 due, Bhasin said.

Marketing Tool

AI is a game-changer when it comes to marketing, said Relentless Digital’s Crouch.

Relentless Digital offers AI that can reply individually to online customer reviews, something marketing experts say is an important part of a company’s marketing efforts. The replies can be written in draft mode, Crouch said, and reviewed by a human before they’re sent.

Replies are genuine and save contractors time, Crouch said. The tool doesn’t respond to one- and two-star reviews, which typically call for management follow-up, he said.

Relentless Digital’s AI can also help in website design and management, Crouch said, by writing appealing content about the communities a contractor serves. Having a web page dedicated to each community an HVAC company serves increases the likelihood that that company will turn up near the top of the results in an “HVAC contractors near me” internet search, Crouch said. “Google likes that stuff,” he said.

For example, if a community is known for its tree-lined streets, good schools, and outstanding museum, AI can find those declarations on the internet and incorporate them, in an appropriate voice, into the copy on a contractor’s web page for that community.

“We usually see some quick organic growth in those towns and cities that we target,” Crouch said.

Workiz and ServiceTitan tools can be used in marketing, too.

Workiz’s Call Insights, for example, can spot customer trends and prompt contractors to act on them.

“If multiple customers inquire about eco-friendly options, Call Insights can flag this trend, enabling the business to adapt its offerings and train staff to highlight these options, leading to increased sales and customer satisfaction,” Azaria said.

ServiceTitan has a job value-prediction function that can be applied to marketing, Bhasin said. It can spot geographical areas, say by ZIP code, in which there are higher average customer spends, enabling the contractor to better target marketing efforts and perhaps spend more in areas where there’s the likelihood of a greater return.

One Contractor’s Story

Zachary Kays is the software administrator at Intelligent Design Air Conditioning, Plumbing, Solar & Electric, a contractor in the Tucson, Arizona, area. He was brought on about a year and a half ago to optimize the company’s use of ServiceTitan, and said he spends about 80% of his work time on it, with some marketing work making up the rest.

Kays said he’s moved Intelligent Design’s ServiceTitan usage score from a 68 to nearly 93, meaning his company is using ServiceTitan more effectively than almost 93% of other users. Intelligent Design has a large suite of ServiceTitan products, he said, including Dispatch Pro, Scheduling Pro, and Marketing Pro, which employees call “AI is pretty much in everything,” he said.

ServiceTitan, Kays said, made it easy to learn its tools. “They’ll teach you everything you need to know,” he said.

ServiceTitan has helped increase the number of reviews left by customers, which are vital in internet search algorithms. So far in 2024, Kays said in early July, Intelligent Design had 446 reviews, compared to 418 in all of 2023. “We’re already on track to double the number of reviews,” he said.

Intelligent Design also uses ServiceTitan AI to respond to reviews, making each one a little bit different, a feature that boosts the company’s standing with Google. Kays approves the reviews before hitting send, but said they’re almost always spot on.

“It saves you a lot of time, but it’s also not going to do anything you don’t want it to do,” like give away company secrets, Kays said.

AI can also generate a summary invoice for each completed job, Kays said. “That’s a very nice feature, and it saves money,” he said.

What about IoT?

The Internet of Things (IoT) — the way devices are connected and communicate with each other — often goes hand in hand with AI.

ServiceTitan’s Fleet Pro, a fleet-management platform, has such a tool, said Bhasin, an AI video camera that goes inside a work truck to record a technician’s activities, alerting contractors to risky behaviors. The company said Fleet Pro can reduce accident risk by nearly 75%.

IoT and AI are also at work, Workiz’s Azaria said, when a sensor on an HVAC component detects the component is not working right and the customer is automatically notified.

“When an IoT-enabled HVAC item requires service, the automation system can trigger a schedule link to the customer, allowing them to book a service appointment without the need to speak to anyone,” Azaria said. “This integration simplifies the service process, improves response times, and enhances customer satisfaction by making it easy to address issues as they arise.”

Crouch, at Relentless Digital, said it’s difficult to keep up with the changes in AI technology but well worth the effort.

“It’s a paradigm shift,” he said. “It isn’t just a new toy.”

Artificial intelligence leads office rebound in San Francisco

Artificial intelligence has brought smiles to the faces of beleaguered office landlords in San Francisco.

A quarter of all leasing activity in the city since last year was inked by AI tenants, the San Francisco Business Times reported, citing figures from CBRE.

AI companies account for the majority of net positive new demand — meaning the sector is the only one growing its tenant footprint in San Francisco, Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s tech insights center, told the newspaper.

Overall office vacancy in San Francisco has hit a record 37 percent, according to CBRE. San Francisco’s 89 million-square-foot office market had 33 million square feet of vacant workplaces in the second quarter

Prominent publicly traded landlords spoke optimistically about the city’s office market in the second quarter, citing AI’s growth potential.

New York-based Paramount Group, which has a 4 million-square-foot office portfolio in San Francisco, reported “clear signs” that demand for office space in the city is picking up.

The increase is in large part attributable to newly funded AI companies that are emphasizing in-person work and collaboration, Peter Brindley, head of real estate for Paramount, said during an earnings call.

“We feel a lot more optimistic today than we did going back, call it, six months,” Brindley told analysts, adding that the city “seems to be moving in a better direction.”

For Victor Coleman, CEO of Los Angeles-based Hudson Pacific Properties which owns 2.5 million square feet of offices in San Francisco, improvements stretched across its West Coast markets.

Crime is down, he said on an earnings call, while public transit ridership is up, sublease availability is declining and demand for offices is growing.

“Nowhere is this more evident than in San Francisco,” Coleman told analysts, noting that AI is “reigniting” the city’s office market.

This year, he said, is “on pace to be another significant AI leasing year” in San Francisco.

AI has had a footprint in San Francisco for a decade, according to the Business Times. But the sector caught fire last year, when AI firms signed new leases in and around a Downtown left for dead after a broad shift to remote work.

OpenAI and Anthropic created a commercial real estate sensation by signing two of the largest office leases since the pandemic.

Los Angeles-based Kilroy Realty, which owns a 3.4 million-square-foot portfolio in Downtown San Francisco, is tracking “about 600,000 square feet more of deals” involving AI tenants close to the finish line, according to Robert Paratte, chief leasing officer for Kilroy.

AI, Paratte said, is “really ramping up.”

Many of the new entrants to San Francisco’s office market are early-stage AI startups that are taking just a few thousand square feet of space at a time, market observers say.

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JLL expects the sector’s footprint in San Francisco will reach 12 million square feet by 2030, up from less than 4 million square feet.

“One of these companies could be the next Google or Facebook just based on their current trajectory,” Chris Pham, a senior analyst at JLL’s San Francisco-based research office, told the Business Times in June.

— Dana Bartholomew