Apple’s Siri is finally getting a serious upgrade. Say bye-bye to passing you off to ChatGPT or Google for answers. Apple’s new project, awkwardly named “World Knowledge Answers,” is an AI-powered search engine that could turn Siri into your go-to answer machine right inside your iPhone, Safari browser, and Spotlight.
For years, Siri fell behind voice assistants like Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini. Apple users just wanted the assistant to answer basic questions without sounding like your puzzled uncle. Now, Apple is kicking things into gear, aiming to deliver smart, context-rich answers—without outsourcing your data to random servers.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is building Siri with three core components: a planner to interpret your query, a search system that scours either your device or the web, and a summarizer to deliver responses in natural, human-friendly language. Web searches may tap Google’s Gemini model, while Apple’s own foundation models will manage what stays on-device, keeping your privacy intact.
What We Know So Far
Internally dubbed “World Knowledge Answers,” this system will deliver responses that blend text, images, videos, and localized info, kind of like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, or Perplexity, but seamlessly built into iOS.
Apple is relying on its own Foundation Models for privacy-sensitive tasks, while leveraging a custom version of Google’s Gemini for web summarization running securely within Private Cloud Compute servers.
This overhaul is backed by Apple’s new AKI uni, “Answers, Knowledge, and Information,” set up to build this answer engine and steer its development.
Timing & Scope
All signs point to a rollout around March 2026 in a software update dubbed iOS 26.4 (code-named “Luck E”), not long after the rumored iPhone 17 debut. And it won’t just live in Sir. Apple plans to bake it into Safari and Spotlight, making it a system-wide knowledge power tool.
Analyst Voice
It’s not just hype. One tech analyst I spoke with, who insisted on staying nameless because NDA, laughed and said, “This is Apple finally stepping up. They love control, and creating their own answer engine gives them control over answers, privacy, and user experience. It’s not just smart, it’s Apple-smart.”
Another source inside the AI research world mused, “They looked at Anthropic, OpenAI, even thought of buying Perplexity, but Gemini came in with the cheapest, easiest win. Apple’s pragmatic that way.”
If Apple pulls this off, Siri could become your first stop for clear, intelligent, multimedia-rich answers, no more asking Siri something and getting, “Hmm, I didn’t get that, but here’s a web search.” Whether you’re asking cooking tips, homework help, or flight status, this upgrade could make Siri feel genuinely helpful while your data stays yours.
But there are roadblocks: Apple’s delayed AI rollout has already been pushed back past iOS 18, and they’ve lost top AI researchers to competitors like Meta.
Still, if March 2026 is their date, and World Knowledge Answers lands as promised, Siri might finally become the assistant we all deserved long ago.
Apple’s not just borrowing AI, it’s building a hybrid system that balances homegrown privacy with third-party firepower. For everyday users, that could mean Siri that actually does its job. And yes, that is long overdue.
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