Overview

• Apple has formed the Answers, Knowledge and Information (AKI) team under AI chief John Giannandrea and led by Robby Walker to develop a homegrown AI answer engine
• The engine is designed to crawl the web for concise responses to general-knowledge questions and could appear as a standalone app
• Underlying infrastructure from the project will power AI-enabled search features in Siri, Spotlight and Safari to fill gaps in Apple Intelligence
• Recruitment efforts are ramping up with job listings seeking expertise in search algorithms and engine development even as the AKI project remains in early development with no public release expected soon
• Heightened regulatory scrutiny of Apple’s $20 billion annual search pact with Google is accelerating the push for a proprietary AI search solution