Apple Plans AI-Powered Web Search Tool For Siri To Rival OpenAI, Perplexity

Apple Inc. is planning to launch its own artificial intelligence-powered web search tool next year, stepping up competition with OpenAI and Perplexity AI Inc.

The company is working on a new system — dubbed internally as World Knowledge Answers — that will be integrated into the Siri voice assistant, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Apple has discussed also eventually adding the technology to its Safari web browser and Spotlight, which is used to search from the iPhone home screen.

Apple is aiming to release the service, described by some executives as an “answer engine,” in the spring as part of a long-delayed overhaul to Siri, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been announced.

The idea is to make Siri and Apple’s operating systems a place where users can look up information from across the internet — in a similar fashion to ChatGPT, AI Overviews in Google Search and a crop of new apps. The approach will rely on large language models, or LLMs, a key technology underpinning generative AI.

The underlying technology enabling the new Siri could come in part from Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Apple’s longtime partner in internet search. The companies reached a formal agreement this week for Apple to evaluate and test a Google-developed AI model to help power the voice assistant, the people said.

Apple’s new search experience will include an interface that makes use of text, photos, video and local points of interest, according to the people. It also will offer an AI-powered summarization system designed to make results more quickly digestible and more accurate than what’s offered by the current Siri.

Spokespeople for Cupertino, California-based Apple and Mountain View, California-based Google declined to comment.

Apple shares climbed to a session high on Wednesday after Bloomberg News reported on the search plan, adding to earlier gains. The stock rose 3.8% to $238.47 at the close in New York, marking the biggest one-day increase in almost a month.

Today’s Siri can answer basic questions and provide facts about notable people, events, movies and sports, among other things. But it struggles with more complex queries and general-knowledge searches, instead often providing results from Google or ChatGPT. The voice assistant — groundbreaking when it was released in 2011 — has come to represent Apple’s shortfalls in artificial intelligence.

The latest development comes the same week a US judge ruled that Apple can maintain an arrangement that makes Google the default search engine on its devices — with minor tweaks. That agreement has generated roughly $20 billion a year in revenue for Apple, and investors were relieved to see it continue. But a pivot to AI-based search remains in motion.

Earlier this year, the company’s services chief, Eddy Cue, told a courtroom that the number of Google search queries from Apple devices had dropped. “That has not happened in 20 years,” he said. “We’re starting to see what I believe are potential formidable competitors” to traditional search engines, he added, referring to AI-based options.

Still, Tuesday’s ruling preserving Apple’s Google search deal could mean the company now has less urgency to develop homegrown services.

Siri Overhaul

As part of the long-promised Siri revamp, the digital assistant will be able to tap into personal data and on-screen content to better fulfill queries. It also will be able to more precisely navigate users’ devices via voice. But now Apple is looking to go further with the update. A technology overhaul for Siri — dubbed Linwood and LLM Siri — lays the groundwork for the AI search feature.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software engineering and the person overseeing the Siri strategy, hinted at the expanded set of changes in a recent all-hands meeting with employees.

“The work we’ve done on this end-to-end revamp of Siri has given us the results we needed,” he said. “This has put us in a position to not just deliver what we announced, but to deliver a much bigger upgrade than we envisioned.”

A number of teams are working on the search initiative, including the Siri group under Federighi, the AI division led by John Giannandrea and Apple’s services unit run by Cue. Mike Rockwell, the creator of the Vision Pro headset, is spearheading the effort under Federighi, while Robby Walker, an ex-Siri chief, is a key driver of the project under Giannandrea.