Apple plans an AI-powered search tool for Siri

The company aims to release the service next year as part of a delayed overhaul.

- By Mark GuRMAN

DAVID PAUL MORRIS CRAIG Federighi, Apple's head of software engineering, is helping steer the company's renewed AI strategy.

Apple Inc. is planning to launch its own artificial intelligence-powered web search tool next year, stepping up competition with OpenAl 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, Calif.-based Apple and Mountain View, Calif.-based Google declined to comment.