A senior Apple executive says the company is “actively looking at” implementing AI-powered search solutions in Safari, as the tech giant's web browser faces its first-ever drop in searches and potentially having to end a lucrative deal with Google.

Apple’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, made the comments last Wednesday when he testified during a hearing on a US Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit against Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

The case has recently targeted exclusivity deals struck by Google, which pays billions of dollars annually to be the default search engine on devices made by the likes of Apple and Samsung.

If successful, the lawsuit could see the companies forced to end their deals.

Cue said the number of searches made through Safari dropped for the first time in April, which he attributed to more consumers using AI chatbots with search capabilities, such as Perplexity, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Anthropic’s Claude.

He argued AI search providers would eventually replace standard search engines like Google, including on Apple devices.

“We will add them to the list — they probably won’t be the default,” Cue said, as Bloomberg reported.

The executive said Apple had already held discussions with Perplexity.

Apple already has an agreement to use ChatGPT in parts of its Apple Intelligence AI software and is expected to add Google’s AI chatbot Gemini to its devices later this year.

‘New entrants attacking the problem in a different way’

Cue suggested the rise of generative AI (genAI) models had challenged the dominance of Google — which receives more than 90 per cent of search requests in Australia but has previously claimed it does not dominate the market.

“Prior to AI, my feeling around this was, none of the others were valid choices [aside from Google],” Cue said.

“I think today there is much greater potential because there are new entrants attacking the problem in a different way.”


Apple executive Eddy Cue says AI search services still 'won't be the default' in Safari anytime soon. Image: Shutterstock

With more than two billion active Apple devices around the world, a move away from Google being the company’s default search option — either by choice or through the DOJ lawsuit — would be a major blow for Alphabet.

News that Apple had begun considering AI search options for Safari caused a $232 billion ($US150 billion) drop in Alphabet’s market value on Wednesday.

But losing the exclusivity deal would hurt Apple too, Cue argued.

According to The Verge, Cue said he had “lost a lot of sleep” over potentially losing the deal, which was worth an estimated $31 billion ($US20 billion) annually to Apple.

Cue reportedly warned losing the deal would impact Apple’s ability to develop new products and admitted Google could potentially keep its position in Safari without a deal, as it was the best available service for customers.

Apple has lagged its competitors when it comes to genAI technologies, as it does not have its own AI search engine and has delayed heavily advertised AI upgrades planned for its digital assistant, Siri.

Google says it faces ‘immense competition’

In a statement on Wednesday, Google said it had continued to see “an increase in total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms”, including through voice and visual searches.

While the US DOJ has proposed ending Google’s exclusivity deals with device-makers, it has also pushed for the company to sell off its Chrome web browser to reduce its dominance of search, which a US judge last year found was a monopoly.

In a blog post on Friday, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, argued the DOJ’s proposals ignored “the immense competition across the industry”.

"Well-funded services like [OpenAI’s] ChatGPT, [xAI’s] Grok, DeepSeek, Perplexity, and Meta AI are rapidly gaining users and distribution, and adding innovations at a breakneck pace,” she said.

“… Our ability to enter into promotional agreements isn’t holding back this new generation of competition.”

Mulholland suggested any moves to lessen the availability of Google Search or Google Chrome would “leave consumers with worse experiences and fewer choices” and would “hold back innovation”.


Google says it faces increasing competition from AI search services such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Meta AI. Image: Shutterstock

AI’s ‘uncertain’ impact on search quality

Google has added several genAI features to its search engine since ChatGPT’s boom in late 2022, including AI Overviews which summarise search results — but these have not been immune to AI hallucinations which generate incorrect information.

The company has also begun testing an integrated AI chatbot for Google Search, dubbed AI Mode.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has previously found the increased use of genAI in search may have “uncertain” implications for the quality of search results.

“As search engines incorporate this technology into their services in different ways, generative AI may lead to a new era of more relevant, efficient and intuitive search,” it said in a report released in December.

“It could also raise new challenges for consumers seeking credible, reliable, unbiased and verifiable information.”