Report Suggests Apple May Be Developing Its Own Search Engine and Generative AI Technology

Apple is working to improve its search features, which the company says it already uses in some of its apps. Currently, this tool is currently available in some Apple apps and is expected to roll out to the App Store, macOS, and iOS to provide more accurate search results.

According to Mark Gurman’s Power On Newsletter, Apple’s search engine tool called Pegasus has been around for a while. John Giannandrea, formerly of Google, is actively working with his team to better integrate it with Apple’s applications. In addition, Apple is also said to enhance this search engine/tool with generative artificial intelligence following the footsteps of Google and Microsoft to improve search functionality.

Gurman notes that if the search tool evolves into a search engine, it “could potentially create a revenue stream similar to the Apple Watch.” However, the realization of this potential depends on a number of factors, and one constant goal is to increase Apple’s revenue and reduce its dependence on Google.

While Google has paid Apple some of its search revenue for allowing Google to be the default search engine on iPhones and Macs (about $8 billion in recent years), Apple could potentially increase its revenue by implementing its own solution.

The report also mentions that Apple has been actively looking for new engineers to join its machine learning team and has made strategic acquisitions to lay the groundwork for its AI and search goals. In 2019, Apple acquired Laserlike, an AI-focused search engine founded by former Google employees.

It’s not clear when Apple might bring its own search engine, if at all. However, given the growing importance of generative AI and search in general, Apple is surely trying to keep up with Google and Microsoft to make sure it doesn’t fall behind in the fast-moving AI race.