Apple has quietly assembled a new group—formally called the Answers, Knowledge and Information team and known internally as “Answers”—to build a stripped-down generative-AI search engine that could rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the system, described as an “answer engine,” is designed to crawl the web and provide concise responses to general-knowledge queries. The unit is led by senior AI director Robby Walker and reports to Apple AI chief John Giannandrea. Apple is advertising more than a dozen roles for machine-learning and search specialists in the United States and China, underscoring the company’s push to bring sophisticated web-scale language models in-house. Although still in early development, Apple is weighing a standalone application alongside deeper integration with Siri, Spotlight and the Safari browser in future versions of iOS. The initiative highlights Apple’s effort to narrow the gap with competitors that have already embedded large language models in consumer search and personal-assistant products.