????Now Apple has found a way to advance search in an equally dramatic way: Siri. There's no search box to type into. You just ask. The idea of voice-activated search has been around for some time. Nuance Communications (NUAN), whose technology reportedly powers Siri, has long sold its Dragon voice-recognition software that can surf the web by voice. And Google's mobile search app can type spoken queries into its search box.
????But Siri is more than voice recognition. It's a form of AI that takes a few more steps closer to an app that could pass the Turing test. People are still uncomfortable with any AI application that could be mistaken for a human, but the Easter-egg answers Apple has snuck into the app defuses any potential discomfort, and in fact gives Siri a conversational interface that feels far more personal that Google's spartan home page.
????It's that conversational interface that poses the threat to Google. No longer is the search box the front-end of searches on the iPhone 4S. Google is the back-end technology that is suddenly less visible. Or rather, one of the back ends. Because of the rise of specialized searches like Yelp and Wolfram|Alpha, Siri can easily bypass Google's search algorithms for many queries.
????Google has another reason to be worried about Siri: It's the closest thing we have to a mass-market phone app. For years, Google cast itself as a tech company at the forefront of artificial intelligence. Back in 2004, Google's Sergey Brin talked about a future where AI would let you say into a phone "what you want to search for, and it will be pulled up." Google reached that goal before Apple did, but now Apple has raised the bar much higher.
????Google saw search as an entry point into artificial intelligence. Apple saw it the other way around -- Siri's AI was its way of helping people navigate the web. The question isn't whether Siri is a search engine that can replace Google's search box. It's a different kind of search -- that is, it's the future of search.
????Google will no doubt come back with its own AI innovations to search. That's why Siri won't be a Google killer. It will instead be a Google competitor in Google's core market. Both companies will shape how we find information on our phones, which means the search industry is about to see some interesting changes in the coming years.
