Apple still hasn’t laid its AI ambitions to rest as it aims to establish itself as a serious player in what has proved to be a heated competition. Next up in Apple’s playbook, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, is the development of an AI-powered web search tool meant to rival OpenAI and Perplexity AI.
A bite of the AI Apple
Known as World Knowledge Answers, Apple’s eventual plan is to integrate the tool into Siri before expanding it to the company’s web browser, Safari, and later, Spotlight search. Described as an “answer engine” by some execs, the Big Fruit Company has lofty aspirations that would see the tool debut in Spring (our Autumn) 2026.
What will power this newer, smarter AI web search tool remains to be seen. In typical Apple fashion, when it comes to dealing with artificial intelligence, it seems the work will fall to… somebody else. Gurman mentions that it reportedly reached a formal agreement with Alphabet Inc. to trial a Google-developed AI model to help power the voice assistant. Considering Apple’s recent AI failures, that’s not surprising.
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In fact, Gurman reported earlier this year that it was looking to outsource most of the Siri overhaul — with both OpenAI and Anthropic in the running. Apple’s new tool won’t do anything new with the concept, featuring an interface that utilises text, photo, and video to function. It’ll also include AI-powered summarisation to make its results all the more digestible, while possibly crippling human-led website traffic.
After a rocky WWDC 2024 that it still hasn’t quite lived up to, the pressure is on for the company to deliver something worthwhile in the AI space — before the bubble pops. This appears to be a step in the right direction for the company, shares of which rose 3.8% after Bloomberg reported on the plan. And the bubble grows larger…
