Apple has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit in the United States that accused the company of misleading consumers about the availability of its artificial intelligence (AI) features on recent iPhones. 

The proposed settlement covers customers who purchased models in the iPhone 16 range and the iPhone 15 Pro between June 10, 2024 and March 29, 2025. Under the terms of the agreement, eligible claimants could receive $25 per device, a figure that may rise to as much as $95 depending on the number of claims submitted and other factors, according to a recent blog by the legal team at Clarkson Law Firm, which brought the case.

The lawsuit, filed in 2025, argued that Apple’s marketing created a “clear and reasonable consumer expectation” that its suite of AI tools, branded as Apple Intelligence, would be fully available at launch. Plaintiffs alleged that the devices instead shipped with limited or missing functionality, raising questions about how technology companies communicate emerging AI capabilities to consumers.

Apple first introduced its AI ambitions during its annual developer conference, Worldwide Developers Conference, in June 2024, where it previewed a more personalised version of its voice assistant, Siri. However, when the iPhone 16 line debuted in September, many of the promised features were not immediately available, despite marketing that described the devices as “built for Apple Intelligence”.

The company subsequently released features in stages, including tools such as Image Playground, Genmoji and an integration with ChatGPT within Siri. A more advanced, personalised version of Siri has yet to launch and is expected later this year.

Regulatory scrutiny also followed. In April, the U.S. National Advertising Division recommended that Apple revise or withdraw claims suggesting that Apple Intelligence features were “available now” on its website. Apple later removed an advertisement for the iPhone 16 that featured actor Bella Ramsey demonstrating the upgraded Siri.