Apple was one of the first to popularize the universal search feature in their devices. This feature is named as Spotlight Search and it can not only search content on the device but also from within apps and the web. More or less the same feature is already available on most Android devices as well as Windows computers. Recently, Apple is reportedly considering upgrading Spotlight Search with a multi-language model to make it a more powerful search engine.
With this update, if Apple integrates generative AI on Spotlight Search, it can not only be a search engine for finding information on the web or launching applications, but can also perform activities from within the application. For example, "Open the camera, take a selfie and immediately send it to Dear on iMessage". Not only that, Spotlight Search can also be like Gemini, Copliot or the ChatGPT application, only it is built directly into Apple's operating system.
Like Gemini, Spotlight Search for Apple will have a switch to switch between searching for content within the application or performing complex information searches using AI. Right now it's just a preliminary plan for Apple to put its development code into XCode. Not sure yet if this feature will become a reality. Apple is said to want to include AI features in iOS 18 which will be Apple's biggest iOS update in history.