Apple is thinking about making changes to Safari to work with AI-based search engines, as it considers what it can do if courts end the $20 billion default search deal with Google.
Google is facing the prospect of making changes to its business, as a court tries to work out the best remedies it can take to conclude an antitrust lawsuit. For Apple, one of these options is for the court to end its deal worth $20 billion per year to keep Google as the default search on iPhone and in Safari.
With the very real possibility of missing out in billions of dollars in revenue from Google, Apple is seemingly thinking about the next steps it can take with Safari and search. It apparently involves AI, the current popular concept in the tech industry.
An AI search future
Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue disclosed to the court on Wednesday that Apple is “actively looking” at changing search on Safari to use AI-based versions instead of Google, reports Bloomberg. During his testimony, Cue added that Safari searches were down for the first time in April, which he put down to people using AI for queries instead.
Cue offered that AI search providers will probably replace traditional search engines like Google. He also thinks that Apple will add the AI-based versions, such as from OpenAI, Perplexity AI, and Anthropic PBC, as search options within Safari.
While they will be added, Cue adds that they probably won’t be set as the default search, and that improvements are still needed from them all.
Those improvements will probably include an overhaul of their search indexes, Cue believes. Even if that isn’t fixed in the short term, Cue feels that there are other features available in AI search to prompt people to switch over.
When it comes to exactly who Apple will work with on introducing AI search engines to the Safari list, Cue said it was in talks with Perplexity at the moment. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is already integrated into Siri, and Cue adds that Google’s Gemini could be added later in 2025.
Lack of sleep
While the discussions are largely about ending the Google default search deal, Cue is still keen on keeping Google search as the default in Safari. Cue claims that he has lost sleep over the possibility of losing out on the deal and the billions it brings in to Apple’s coffers.
That deal has already expanded into visual search. In 2024, the deal was altered so that Google Lens could be integrated into Visual Intelligence, allowing users to search using the iPhone’s camera.
It is probable that a closure of the deal will also force Apple to rethink the operation of Visual Intelligence itself.
