Apple's AI search engine could be driven by Google and help revive Siri, report says

Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Apple plans to motorboat an AI hunt engine, reportedly.
• The AI hunt acquisition would powerfulness the Siri dependable assistant.
• The expected motorboat is successful the outpouring arsenic portion of the Siri overhaul. 

Though Apple offers utile AI features done its Apple Intelligence suite, treatment of the company's AI efforts usually returns to 1 main sticking point: the hold of a revamped Siri.

That motorboat has been highly anticipated, arsenic it is expected to propulsion Siri's capabilities to a caller level. The finished merchandise is meant to instrumentality each of the idiosyncratic discourse from your telephone activities to relation arsenic a idiosyncratic adjunct -- a deeper integration than thing we person seen from different competitors. 

Also: Could Apple make an AI hunt motor to rival Gemini and ChatGPT? Here's however it could succeed

At WWDC, the institution said that the update was inactive coming, and a caller Bloomberg report citing insiders reports important strides to powerfulness that experience, including gathering an AI hunt engine. 

A hunt engine, made by Apple

Building connected a erstwhile Bloomberg report, which recovered that Apple's precocious assembled Answers, Knowledge, and Information (AKI) squad was moving connected an "answer engine" that tin supply responses to wide cognition questions, utilizing the web, this study goes deeper into the caller strategy referred to internally arsenic World Knowledge Answers. 

Also: This useful Apple Intelligence diagnostic saves maine implicit $200 a year

The work would beryllium slated to merchandise successful the springtime with the motorboat of iOS 26.4, alongside the Siri overhaul, according to the report. This strategy would let users to find accusation from the web close successful Siri and Apple's operating system, with the added assistance of AI. 

You tin find a roundup of different features the AI strategy would have, according to the study below: 

• An interface that uses the consumer's mundane data, including text, photos, video, and section points of interest. 
•  An AI-powered summarization strategy to marque results much digestible and much accurate
  
• Siri would beryllium capable to navigate users' devices with voice-only controls 
• As Bloomberg antecedently reported, a chatbot-like acquisition for hunt is inactive being worked on. 

While rumors of an AI hunt motor from Apple are not new, the study does item that underpining the caller strategy could beryllium a Google-developed AI model. According to the report's sources, Google and Apple reached a ceremonial statement this week for Apple to trial the exemplary to powerfulness the dependable assistant. 

Bigger picture

Using Google's models mightiness beryllium a astute determination for Apple, arsenic the institution has developed susceptible models and has acquisition dominating the hunt motor abstraction for decades. According to StatCounter, arsenic of August 2025, Google held 89.83% of the hunt motor marketplace stock worldwide, followed by Bing, which held lone 3.95%. 

Google besides knows however to incorporated AI into its hunt experience, with AI overviews and AI Mode, 2 antithetic experiences that leverage AI to get accusation to users quicker and much easily. The AI hunt motor abstraction has different players, specified arsenic Perplexity, which was built to beryllium an AI-first hunt engine, and ChatGPT, which folded successful what it primitively called ChatGPT Search into its chatbot experience. 

Also: Can GPT-5 hole Apple Intelligence? We're astir to find out

All eyes volition beryllium connected Apple adjacent week arsenic the institution prepares to motorboat its iPhone 17 lineup, different products, and, astir importantly for AI-afficionados, iOS 26. The operating strategy was launched astatine WWDC successful June and includes an extended suite of features that volition adhd to the existent Apple Intelligence experience, which users volition beryllium capable to get simply by updating their devices. 

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