Is Apple secretly developing an AI chatbot to compete with ChatGPT?

Although it has stated that it has no plans to launch a chatbot to compete with ChatGPT or Gemini, it seems that Apple is quietly making its own moves in the field of artificial intelligence.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman's latest Power On report, Apple has begun building a dedicated team to develop internal AI services, including a chatbot-like search engine similar to ChatGPT. This team is called Answers, Knowledge, and Information, and is headed by Robby Walker, the former head of the Siri development team, after he was transferred from the virtual assistant project.

The team is reportedly working on an 'answer engine' that will be able to scrape information from the internet to answer general knowledge questions. Apple is also considering developing a standalone chatbot, while rebuilding its back-end infrastructure to integrate AI more deeply into products like Siri, Spotlight, and Safari.

In parallel, Apple has also accelerated its recruitment of experts in the field of search algorithms and query engine development. Although Apple's AI chatbot may still be a few years away from being officially launched, this move shows clear ambition in the technology race with OpenAI, Google and many other giants.

Apple has now integrated ChatGPT into Siri, allowing iPhone users to experience the same AI benefits as on Android. However, Apple is known for not 'relying' on third parties for long, often developing its own solutions when given the opportunity.

After announcing third-quarter business results with many new records, CEO Tim Cook also announced that Apple will 'significantly increase' investment in artificial intelligence, while expanding its ability to acquire AI companies.

Notably, there have recently been rumors that Apple is considering acquiring Perplexity – an AI-integrated search engine, which is considered a potential competitor to both Google and ChatGPT in the future.