Before too much longer, doing a search in the Safari web browser might bring up AI-powered results rather than the standard Google search engine, according to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services.
Cue points out that this is Apple following a trend, as the company sees Safari users increasingly turning to AIs in place of traditional search engines.
Safari search could go straight to an AI
Web search is changing. Used to be, if we wanted to find out something obscure, we’d turn to Google. We’d type “cast of Full House” or “Zendaya age” into the search engine to get answers. But now we can ask an AI like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or xAI’s Grok our questions. And we are — SOCi’s Consumer Behavior Index shows that 19% of consumers already use AI for search, and that number keeps growing.
That’s cutting into Google’s usage. During testimony Wednesday in the U.S. Justice Department lawsuit against Alphabet, Apple’s services chief Eddy Cue said usage of Safari’s search function declined last month, the first time that ever happened, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Apple’s response includes “actively looking at” building AI search into Safari, said Cue in his testimony.
That doesn’t just mean switching to Google’s Gemini AI. Apple engaged in discussions with Perplexity AI about Safari search, and is also considering ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude for user searches, according to Bloomberg.
“What AI tools like ChatGPT offer is a new kind of user experience, free of ads and remarkably effective at providing nuanced, personalized answers to simple and complex questions alike,” said Damian Rollison, SOCi’s senior director of market insights. “As AI tools move further into territory now dominated by Google and other big tech players, such as commercial transactions, they will become increasingly viable as preferred alternatives for a broad range of consumer needs.”
Apple moving away from Google
Google served as Safari’s default search engine for many years because the company paid Apple up to $20 billion a year for the privilege. But last August, a federal judge ruled that this lucrative deal violates antitrust law. It hasn’t yet been forbidden, but that could happen soon.
If so, it will deliver a hefty blow to Apple’s bottom line. However, it also would open the company to new options for search engines, and make it easier for Mac and iPhone users to access AIs … a direction they want to go.
To be clear, users can always change to another search engine, like DuckDuckGo or Bing, but they must do so manually. Otherwise, it’s Google. And someday soon, the list of options might include Perplexity AI ChatGPT.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
