Apple is “actively looking at” reshaping the Safari web browser on its devices to focus on AI-powered search engines in light of the potential fallout of its deal with Google and broader industry shifts.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, made the disclosure on Wednesday during his testimony in the US justice department’s lawsuit against Alphabet. The heart of the dispute is Apple and Google’s estimated US$20-billion/year deal that makes Google the default offering for queries in Apple’s included browser.
He also noted that searches on Safari dipped for the first time last month, which he attributed to people using AI.
Cue said he believes that AI search providers, including OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic, will eventually replace standard search engines like Google. He said he believes Apple will add those players as options in Safari in the future.
“We will add them to the list — they probably won’t be the default,” he said, adding that they still need to improve. Cue specifically said the company has had some discussions with Perplexity. Right now, Apple offers OpenAI’s ChatGPT as an option in Siri and is expected to add Gemini, Google’s AI search product, later this year.
Technology is changing fast enough that people may not even use the same devices in a few years, Cue said.
Technology shift
“You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now as crazy as it sounds,” Cue said in a court. “The only way you truly have true competition is when you have technology shifts. Technology shifts create these opportunities. AI is a new technology shift, and its creating new opportunities for new entrants.”
Cue said that, in order to improve, the AI players would need to improve their search indexes. But, even if that doesn’t happen quickly, they have other features that are “so much better that people will switch”.
Read: Apple, falling behind in AI, shifts strategy
“There’s enough money now, enough large players, that I don’t see how it doesn’t happen,” he said, referring to a switch from standard search to AI.
Cue also said that large language models — the underlying technology for generative AI — will continue to improve, giving users more reason to switch.
Still, he believes Google should remain the default in Safari, saying that he has lost sleep over the possibility of losing the revenue share from their agreement. Last year, the companies expanded their deal to include Google Lens integration as part of the Visual Intelligence feature on the latest iPhones. That allows a user to take a picture and use Google AI to analyse it. — Mark Gurman, Leah Nylen and Stephanie Lai, (c) 2025 Bloomberg LP
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