Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET
ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Apple reportedly has an AI search in the works.
- The AI search experience could have a standalone app and power Siri.
- Timely and strategic release with broader success of AI search engines.
With the launch of Apple Intelligence, Apple sought to enter the AI space after a somewhat late entry. However, several delays of its most sought-after feature, including Siri 2.0, have made it difficult to keep up with more established competitors. A new report details an AI product in the works that may help bolster Apple’s position.
On Sunday, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in the Power On newsletter that Apple’s recently-assembled Answers, Knowledge, and Information (AKI) team is working on a ChatGPT rival that will give users easier access to the breadth of information available on traditional search.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What is the product?
The report said that the product is meant to function as an “answer engine” that can provide responses to general knowledge questions, leveraging the web. This is a major pivot from the current approach, as Apple never developed its own search engine, even in the pre-AI era. Once it came to incorporating generative AI, it relied on OpenAI’s ChatGPT to feed users responses that Siri can’t access.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Apple is reportedly also exploring the creation of a standalone app for this experience and back-end infrastructure that can power the search capabilities for other Apple offerings, including Siri, Spotlight, and Safari, in the future. This could be a major win for users as it would allow them to access the information they need from the web conversationally and natively within their favorite apps in the Apple experience. The standalone app could also pose a worthy rival to those of other AI searches on the market, such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity, all available for download on iOS now — with the advantage that it would be native to the Apple ecosystem of tools.
Increasingly, more users are turning to AI search engines to conduct their queries for the above-mentioned queries. The Pew Research Center just released a report showing that Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears, likely because they find all of the information they need in the overview. As a result of this demand, more and more companies have released their own takes on AI search engines, making it strategic for Apple to explore this area.
This move is particularly relevant now, as the US Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Google has entered a remedies phase, which may put an end to the multi-billion-dollar deal that makes Google the default search engine on Apple devices.
What can Apple do to stand out?
Apple’s advantage is that it can integrate its own version of an AI search engine directly into its products, which billions of people rely on every day. If Apple can create a search experience that is functional and actually helpful in getting users the information they need faster, it could not only be a feature users enjoy when searching for new information, but also optimize other experiences on their phones.
For example, imagine a Siri that could pull information in real time from the web, understand user intent, and serve the responses conversationally. While this is, in large part, what Siri 2.0 was supposed to be, a native AI search engine could further enhance its capabilities by having it pull directly from an Apple product rather than relying on a third-party stripped-down experience. The AI search experience could also be accessible in apps like Messages or Mail to access real-time information about what you are sending communications about, which could be a useful tool for users.
Another added bonus is that it will likely keep the same look and interface of Apple’s ecosystem of devices, which Apple users are not only familiar with, but also prefer. For example, when I am asked which chatbot is the best fit for users, I typically tell users who are deep into the Google ecosystem of tools and devices to use Gemini, because, while it offers the overall same use case as the others, it has the same look and feel of the google products which make sit a better fit.
However, it is difficult to beat Google, which has dominated the search market for decades. For example, Bing attempted to catch up with its own integration of AI, and while it did contribute to a surge of over 40 million daily active users, it still pales in comparison to Google’s market share. According to StatCounter, as of July 2025, Google holds 90% of the search engine market share worldwide, while Bing only holds 4%. While these numbers are discouraging, it doesn’t seem like Apple is seeking to compete in the AI space, but would rather prefer to add on to what its users can take advantage of and make its suite of AI tools more robust.
