Apple Forms New “Answers” Team to Build a ChatGPT Rival, Reshaping AI Search
Apple is developing its own AI engine for answering questions—akin to ChatGPT—according to a report by Bloomberg. The initiative is being led by a newly formed internal team known as Answers, Knowledge, and Information (AKI), headed by Robbie Walker, who reports directly to Apple’s head of AI, John Giannandrea.
Apple’s careers page notes that the AKI team is building technologies for products such as Siri, Spotlight, Safari, Messages, and Lookup. The company is actively seeking experts in search algorithms and engine development, describing the team’s mission as the creation of “intuitive information services” for Apple’s flagship offerings.
AKI is currently working on an “answer engine”—a streamlined alternative to ChatGPT—capable of retrieving and delivering answers from the internet. Simultaneously, Apple is developing a standalone application for the engine and upgrading its server infrastructure, which is expected to be integrated into Siri and other systems in the future.
As TechCrunch points out, despite the 2024 launch of Apple Intelligence, the company has yet to unveil its own language model on par with GPT-4 or Claude by Anthropic. At present, Siri relies on integration with ChatGPT and may eventually incorporate support for Perplexity as well.
Apple clearly lags behind rivals such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta, all of whom have already launched powerful AI products. Nevertheless, the company is steadily intensifying its efforts. During a recent earnings call, CEO Tim Cook emphasized Apple’s growing investment in artificial intelligence, stating, “We view AI as one of the most important technologies of our time.”
According to Cook, Apple aims to seamlessly integrate AI across all its devices and platforms, making the technology “simple and accessible to everyone.” The delay in launching its own solutions may not signify a lack of progress, but rather a deliberate strategy—true to Apple’s tradition of offering distinctive, refined products rather than racing competitors to market.
The new version of Siri, featuring integrated answers and enhanced reasoning capabilities, may debut as early as 2026. Until then, Apple is expected to continue relying on external AI engines while concurrently building its own infrastructure under the AKI initiative.
