Apple's AI rollout hasn't gone as smoothly as it would like, but it could be on the verge of something that may help it catch up with the likes of Open AI and Pexplexity. It's an AI search engine tool, internally known as "World Knowledge Answers" that will reportedly integrate into Siri.
This report comes from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who has the lowdown on the upcoming feature. Apparently, this new "answer engine" is expected to be released in spring, as part of the long-gestating Siri update — which will bring a serious AI overhaul to the voice assistant.
The goal is to try and push users to ask Siri for information from the internet, in a way that's described as similar to ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and other similar AI services. And like other AI search tools, it will apparently make use of text, photos, videos and "local points of interest." Which suggests to me this will be a multimodal tool — something Apple sorely lacks.
Naturally, it will also hinge on summarization technology, to help make the results easier to take in and more accurate than what Siri can do right now. Gurman also notes this technology could also make its way to the Safari browser and Apple's Spotlight search tool as well. But it sounds like this is way off in the future.
This could be powered by Google
Crucially, though, the technology powering the new engine is reportedly coming from Google. According to Gurman the two companies have come to an agreement that will see Apple "evaluate and test a Google-developed AI model" that will help power the new Siri.
Google and Apple have had a long partnership when it comes to search, with Google paying billions of dollars every year to ensure its own search engine is the default option on iPhone.
With the courts ruling that this partnership, currently valued at $20 billion, can continue, it makes sense that the two would be open to collaborating on an AI search tool as well.
More so when you consider how well Google's mobile AI efforts have been working the past few years, it could help give Apple the leg-up its own AI ambitions sorely need.
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