Apple signaled on Monday’s earnings call that third-party AI apps could become a new source of services revenue. It didn’t say how. According to TechCrunch AI, CFO Kevan Parekh pointed to “opportunities across third-party apps and partnerships as well as first-party opportunities” when he talked about how AI could “contribute to revenue growth over time.” He gave no details.
⚡ The Quick Take
- The signal: Apple sees AI driving revenue in two places: device upgrades and services.
- The vague part: Parekh never explained what “opportunities across third-party apps” actually means.
- The investor theory: Reuters reports that investors want to know whether Apple could distribute third-party AI agents through the App Store and take a cut of the revenue they generate.
- The guidance: Apple expects services growth of 8 to 9% in the December quarter.
- Why it matters: Lawsuits and regulators keep chipping away at the App Store’s commission model. AI agents could give Apple a new place to collect its cut.
🎙️ What Apple Actually Said
Here’s Parekh’s full answer: “On the product side, you know, we feel AI offers a compelling reason for customers to upgrade and switch in order to get the latest capabilities, and we also feel there’s opportunities across third-party apps and partnerships as well as first-party opportunities.”
The first half is the familiar pitch. New AI features give people a reason to buy new iPhones. The second half is the new part, and it’s deliberately open-ended. What stands out to me is that Apple chose to say it out loud on an earnings call at all. CFOs don’t usually float revenue ideas they haven’t thought through.
Parekh also put a positive spin on the App Store. September quarter performance was “similar to the prior year,” he said, with “a record number of paid subscriptions with double-digit growth for third-party apps.” He also acknowledged “headwinds in mobile gaming” that Apple expects to continue.
📉 Why Apple Needs a New Revenue Story
Apple’s services business is still at record levels. But its core money machine is under pressure from several directions at once:
- Epic Games: The lawsuit forced Apple to let apps send users to outside payment systems, which weakens its grip on in-app transactions.
- Global regulation: Third-party estimates from August suggested an 18% drop in U.S. commission revenue, plus declines in Brazil and Japan after those countries introduced new rules.
- Gaming slump: Mobile games have long been one of the App Store’s biggest revenue sources, and that category is soft.
- Licensing headwinds: Apple’s December guidance cites sequential headwinds “primarily from third-party licensing” plus an extra half percentage point of foreign exchange pressure.
Taken together, the old model of taking a cut of every transaction is getting harder to defend market by market. Apple needs a growth story that doesn’t depend on it.
🤖 What an “Agent Store” Could Look Like
Apple hasn’t confirmed anything, so treat these as possibilities rather than plans:
- Agent distribution: AI agents listed and sold through the App Store, with Apple’s standard commission on subscriptions.
- Transaction share: A cut of purchases or bookings that agents complete for users.
- Platform partnerships: Deeper revenue-sharing deals with model providers, building on the ChatGPT integration Apple already ships in Apple Intelligence.
The catch is real. Agents are built to work across apps and the open web, which makes them good at routing around traditional purchase flows. Major AI companies already sell subscriptions directly on their own websites. And any attempt to tax agent activity would draw the same regulators who are already squeezing App Store fees.
🧭 What to Watch Next
- App Store guideline changes that mention AI agents, automation, or agent-driven purchases.
- Apple’s next developer conference, the most likely place for any agent framework to show up.
- New partnership announcements with AI model providers.
- Regulator reactions, especially in the EU, Japan, and Brazil, if Apple tries to extend commissions to agents.
If you build AI apps for iOS, start thinking about this now. How you distribute and monetize on Apple’s platform could change fast once Apple decides what it wants. TechCrunch has reached out to Apple for comment, and you’ll find the full story at the original source.