According to a Bloomberg report, Apple wants to integrate AI-powered search into its Safari web browser and hit Google a big hit on desktop and mobile devices.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, provided testimony to the U.S. Department of Justice in a lawsuit against Google, said iPhone Maker is “actively studying” Safari for remakes using AI search tools, including options from OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic. Cue noted that online searches on Safari fell for the first time last month.
Currently, Google is the default search platform on Safari and Apple devices. The Justice Department case earlier showed that Google paid Apple $18 billion a year to maintain its default online search location.
Since AI has changed the way consumers collect information, it makes Google’s blue link seem outdated due to its ability to synthesize data from multiple sources in seconds.
Apple has integrated Openai’s Chatgpt into Siri Assistant. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Google’s Gemini will come to Siri later this year.
Openai declined to comment. Apple, Google, confusion and anthropomorphism did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Apple and Google have a history of making deals behind the scenes to ensure neither of them violates each other’s territory, a factor in the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit, such as in the case of search arrangements. Google also entered into a similar deal with Samsung.
This arrangement brings healthy revenue to Apple and gives Google access to Apple’s valuable customer base, which can extract data from it and sell advertising and e-commerce promotions. Once, almost half of Google’s search traffic came from Apple devices.
Google shares fell Wednesday after Cue’s testimony.
