Yet with roughly 90 per cent of the search market, Google still has one big advantage over its rivals: its audience. The company unveiled a raft of new AI features coming to frequently-used services from the Chrome browser to Meet video calling. Itโs expanding initiatives like AI agents and instantaneous voice translation across its entire suite of software, though primarily as premium features only available to paying subscribers.
Apple, meanwhile, is hoping to counter by replicating the early success of the App Store, which occurred after the company opened up its in-house technologies and software frameworks to developers for the first time. By offering its models and making them simple to integrate, Apple is poised to turn its operating systems into the largest software platforms for AI.
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A surge in apps may also have a financial benefit. Apple takes a cut of revenue for subscriptions within apps themselves. But the App Store is under pressure from regulators globally. A US judge ruled last month that Apple must allow developers to steer customers to the web to complete purchases, bypassing the companyโs revenue sharing system. A wave of new apps could soften the blow of losing out on some current sales.
Apple had planned to roll out options for app developers by now, including a new version of a feature called App Intents. That would allow product users to have more precise control over features within apps via the Siri voice assistant. The company is now aiming to introduce this capability as early as the iOS 19 release cycle, which begins in September and extends into 2026.
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