Apple Builds AI Team to Reinvent Search Across Siri, Safari, and Spotlight

Apple is staffing up for a major AI expansion, forming a new internal group focused on creating a smarter, privacy-minded search experience across its platforms. Dubbed the “Answer, Knowledge, and Information” team, the initiative is reportedly aimed at overhauling services like Siri, Spotlight, and Safari, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

The company currently lists over a dozen open roles for this team across the U.S. and China, including a Staff Machine Learning Engineer tasked with advancing “Siri’s ability to answer personal questions” using documents stored on the device. The role description references large language models and a privacy-first approach, signaling that Apple may be building its own foundational AI system, rather than leaning entirely on partners.

After years of avoiding chatbot-style AI, Apple now seems to be shifting strategy.

What’s Driving Apple’s AI Reset

At WWDC 2024, Apple announced its new Apple Intelligence framework, complete with tools like Genmoji, Writing Tools, and Image Playground. Despite the rollout, few of these features have resonated widely. A major Siri upgrade, hyped internally and externally, was recently delayed by over a year, adding to frustration among employees and longtime users.

The new “Answers, Knowledge, and Information” unit appears to be Apple’s internal response to those stumbles.

A Team Built to Rebuild Search

Leading the new group is Robby Walker, a longtime Siri executive known for his blunt assessment of the team’s delays. According to internal reports, Walker described Siri’s repeated timeline slippages as “ugly and embarrassing” during a meeting earlier this year, a sentiment that may have earned him a mandate to rethink Apple’s AI services from the ground up.

Sources say the team’s early goals include:

• A new “Answer Engine” capable of crawling the web and delivering general knowledge responses.
• A standalone app distinct from Siri, Safari, or Spotlight.
• Back-end systems built to support more advanced, context-aware search functions across Apple platforms.

How Soon Could It Launch?

With key roles still unfilled, the project remains in early development. A public rollout likely remains years away.

That said, Apple has been in quiet talks with AI startups focused on conversational search, hinting at a potential parallel track. While it’s unclear if any of those deals advanced, the discussions point to growing urgency inside Apple to close the AI gap with rivals.

Editorial Take: Apple Playing Catch-Up on Search

Apple Intelligence hasn’t yet delivered a breakthrough moment. If this new AI-powered search engine pans out, it could finally push Siri, Safari, and Spotlight beyond their current limitations and into the generative AI era.

But that’s assuming Apple ships it in time and with enough capability to compete with OpenAI and Google’s fast-moving tools. For now, it’s another early signal in Apple’s AI pivot, not a finished product.

Would a smarter Apple search engine actually replace your use of ChatGPT or Google? Sound off in the comments.