Apple's new generative AI 'answer engine' might arrive sooner than we initially thought - 9to5Mac

Early last month, Bloomberg reported on Apple’s new in-house generative AI search product – with a new ‘Answers, Knowledge, and Information’ team. Despite this team’s recent formation, we might get to see the fruits of their labor much sooner than one might’ve anticipated.

Despite all of the Apple Intelligence Siri woes, Apple still seems determined to make an impact in the generative AI space. That’s why it’s trying to develop a Perplexity and ChatGPT rival, which we’ve previously referred to as ‘Answers.’

According to today’s Power On newsletter from Mark Gurman, Apple’s new in-house AI search product might arrive relatively soon:

Apple has used this opportunity to rebuild the assistant to create a new search product — internally dubbed World Knowledge Answers, or WKA — in order to compete with the likes of Perplexity and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. That feature is also scheduled for March as part of the new Siri, and it may eventually make its way into the Safari browser and Spotlight search tool as well.

If this timeline holds up, March is actually quite an impressive launch date for a product that seemingly only begun development a couple months ago. Gurman mentions that Apple’s new ‘answer engine’ won’t be in Safari or Spotlight when it first debuts, so it’ll likely just be something you experience through the upcoming Siri overhaul.

Nonetheless, things are starting to look up quite a bit. Apple is still holding its internal ‘bake off’ to determine whether or not next-generation Siri will utilize Apple’s models or one from an external provider like Google, Anthropic, or OpenAI – though this doesn’t seem to be having an impact on when Apple’s all-new Siri and ‘answer engine’ will launch.

Are you looking forward to Apple’s new generative AI search product? Let us know in the comments.

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