New Spotlight Apps search in macOS 26 doesn't show any results, no matter what I type in

Ever since upgrading to Tahoe, the Applications search has never worked right. No matter what I type in the search box, no results come up for Apps. Even typing something like "photo booth" or "safari" yields an empty results box.

I tried rebooting my Mac, after which an "Indexing..." message appears in Spotlight and the search started working!.... for about two hours. Then when I tried it just now, it's back to the same behavior as before.

Can we just.... have Launchpad back? At least that actually worked.

[Edited by Moderator]