Apple has secretly assembled an internal team dedicated to creating an "answer engine" that can tap into web knowledge, similar to the capabilities of ChatGPT, according to sources familiar with the matter. This initiative aims to enhance how Apple's products, such as Siri, Spotlight, and Safari, respond to user queries.
The team, named "Answers, Knowledge, and Information" (AKI), is led by Robby Walker, a former key figure in the Siri division, and reports directly to John Giannandrea, Apple's head of AI. Currently, the system is in the early stages of framework development, with work underway on an independent "app entry point" and the parallel construction of backend infrastructure to enable the integration of conversational search across multiple Apple systems.
This move represents a significant shift in Apple's AI strategy. Since introducing the Apple Intelligence platform at WWDC last year, the company has been exploring ways to improve its AI capabilities. Initially, Apple integrated ChatGPT into Siri in collaboration with OpenAI to handle complex requests. However, this approach failed to fully bridge the gap in interactive question - answering compared to traditional search methods, and Siri often still directs users to web searches, leaving room for substantial improvement in the user experience.
Moreover, Apple's long - standing arrangement with Google, where Google pays approximately $20 billion annually to be the default search engine on Apple systems, is under scrutiny. The US Department of Justice may compel Apple to modify this agreement, which could impact Apple's service revenue. This potential disruption has further spurred Apple to develop its own AI - based search solutions.
Despite acquiring Siri in 2010 and evolving it into a well - known smart voice assistant, Apple has struggled to keep pace with competitors like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. In response, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently held an all - hands meeting, emphasizing the company's determination to succeed in AI and pledging "unlimited" resources for this pursuit.
Cook pointed out that Apple has a history of entering markets where it wasn't the first mover but managed to redefine industry standards. He emphasized that AI's impact will be even more far - reaching than that of smartphones or the internet, and Apple must establish itself as a leader in this field.
To achieve this, Apple has announced two key initiatives. First, the company will double the size of the AI accelerators in its next - generation Apple Silicon chips, making them the central engines for all its devices to support more powerful on - device AI processing. Second, Siri is undergoing a major overhaul. The original hybrid architecture for Siri's improvement did not meet Apple's quality standards and has been abandoned. Mike Rockwell's team, which is also responsible for Vision Pro, is now tasked with designing an end - to - end large - language - model architecture for Siri, with a "substantial" upgrade expected in 2025.
Apple has also been actively recruiting for the project. Multiple job postings on its official website seek engineers to build search algorithms and information retrieval engines. The job descriptions indicate that these engineers will be involved in developing features that can crawl and reason through web and user document content to answer user questions.
As Apple continues to invest in and develop its AI capabilities, the outcome of this new answer engine project could have a significant impact on how users interact with its products. It remains to be seen how Apple's approach, which emphasizes user privacy and integration with its existing ecosystem, will fare in the highly competitive AI market.