Apple is looking to enhance its Safari browser with new AI-driven search capabilities. This was highlighted by Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, during a recent testimony with the US Justice Department. He noted that for the first time in 22 years, there was a decrease in searches made through Safari, which he attributed to the rising use of AI.
Cue mentioned that tools like OpenAI, Perplexity AI, and Claude AI from Anthropic could potentially change how people approach search engines, similar to how they currently use Google Chrome. While he confirmed that AI options will be integrated into Safari, they may not become the default settings.
Currently, Google remains the main search engine for Safari, with Apple investing approximately $20 billion each year for this service. Analysts suggest that this partnership constitutes about 36% of Google’s search advertising revenue through Safari.
Cue also shared that Apple is in talks with AI search companies such as OpenAI and Perplexity to incorporate their technologies into Safari. He believes that new AI entrants are bringing fresh solutions to the table, making them valid alternatives for searching information.
In addition, Apple is already using OpenAI’s ChatGPT in its Siri assistant and plans to introduce Google’s AI tool, Gemini, later this year. Other options like Anthropic, DeepSeek, and Grok from Elon Musk’s xAI are also being explored.
Following Cue’s comments, shares of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, saw a significant decline, dropping about 8% and losing $160 billion in market value.
