According to the latest edition of Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, Apple has a new plan up its sleeve to rival the competition in the AI search space. This is a major pivot from Apple’s previous stance, where the company said it didn’t want to develop a chatbot.
Apple Intelligence has been off to a rocky start, to say the least. The abilities that have shipped, such as Genmoji and Notification Summaries, haven’t exactly been stellar. Apple has still failed to ship its all-new Siri, and has since delayed its launch by over a year.
Apple would like to change that, though. Earlier this year, they formed a new “Answers, Knowledge, and Information” team internally, per Bloomberg:
Despite philosophical reservations among some Apple leaders, the company is clearly heading in that direction. Earlier this year, Apple quietly formed a new team called Answers, Knowledge and Information, or AKI. This group, I’m told, is exploring a number of in-house AI services with the goal of creating a new ChatGPT-like search experience.
In the past, Apple has expressed interest in working with AI startups like Perplexity, which almost exclusively specializes in an AI search engine experience, so this news isn’t exactly a shock. Per the report, the new team is led by Robby Walker, a former Siri executive who previously lost control after this year’s delays.
For context, Robby Walker held a widely reported on meeting this year where he called the Siri delays ‘ugly and embarrassing.’
Given the fact that this effort just started, it’ll likely be a while before we see the results of it. That said, it’s still exciting to hear that Apple is working on an AI search experience of sorts. I personally find that quite useful.
What do you think about the possibility of Apple launching an AI search experience? Is this something that excites you? Let us know in the comments.
My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:
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