Apple Intelligence does not currently offer search capabilities but focuses on summarizing notifications, rewriting text, generating Genmoji images, and cleaning up photos.
Apple, Inc. (AAPL) is reportedly developing a “stripped-down” rival to OpenAI’s hugely popular ChatGPT chatbot, aligning with CEO Tim Cook’s comments on last week’s earnings call that “we’re putting all of our energy behind” artificial intelligence (AI).
The tech giant reported last Thursday forecast-beating third-quarter results, thanks to surprisingly strong iPhone sales and continued strength in its Services business. Apple stock fell 2.50% on Friday, moving in tandem with the broader market, as investors looked past the results and fretted about the softening of labor market conditions.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment toward Apple stock has stayed ‘extremely bullish’ (82/100) ever since the release of the quarterly results, and the message volume also remained ‘extremely high.’
Bloomberg columnist Mark Gurman said in the latest installment of the “Power-On” newsletter that a new team, named “Answers, Knowledge and Information (AKI),” that Apple put in place earlier this year, is working on creating a new ChatGPT-like search experience.
This would mark a significant shift for Apple, which has struck a partnership with Sam Altman-led OpenAI to utilize its ChatGPT in its Siri voice assistant. Apple’s AI efforts, dubbed Apple Intelligence, do not currently offer search capabilities but focus on summarizing notifications, rewriting text, generating Genmoji images and cleaning up photos.
Apple Intelligence also aims to translate messages and calls.
The AKI team would be led by Robby Walker, who reports to Apple’s AI chief John Giannandrea. Walker was previously heading Siri but was removed from the role following the inordinate delay in launching the improved AI-enabled version of the personal assistant.
Gurman said Walker was then assigned to the AKI team, and he has brought in key members who worked under him at Siri.
The Apple specialist said the team is building an “answer engine,” which can crawl the web to answer general knowledge questions. The new team is reportedly planning to develop a standalone app, along with new back-end infrastructure that would power search capabilities in future versions of Siri, Spotlight and Safari.
Gurman also pointed out job postings pertinent to these projects on its website.
“A finished product may still be far off, but the direction is now unmistakable: Something akin to a stripped-down, Apple-built approach to ChatGPT-like search is coming,” the columnist said.
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