Artificial intelligence services, such as Perplexity or SearchGPT from OpenAI, may become search engine options in the upcoming version of Safari, Bloomberg reports. The preliminary plans were shared by Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, during his testimony in the antitrust case against Google’s search engine. Cue was summoned to testify because of the agreement between Google and Apple, according to which Google Search is to remain the default search engine on the iPhone.
Q claims that Apple has discussed possible Safari integration with Perplexity, but did not share any specific plans during his testimony. However, it is clear that he believes that AI assistants will inevitably displace traditional search engines. “Before AI came along, I thought none of the other options were viable,” says Q. – Today, the potential is much greater. “I think there’s a lot more potential today because there are new entrants who are approaching the problem differently.”
Whatever AI search Apple eventually adds, it likely won’t be the default, says Cue, but “there’s enough money, enough big players right now that I don’t see how it won’t happen.” There is some evidence that the situation is changing. According to The Verge, Cue reported that last month, the number of Google searches in Safari dropped for the first time, which “has never happened in 22 years.” It’s possible that these missing searches have made their way to ChatGPT or Gemini.
Google pays Apple $18 billion or more a year to keep Google Search as the default search engine, possibly in addition to other financial incentives. Q threads a very fine needle by acknowledging the popularity of artificial intelligence, but not suggesting that Google’s deals prevent other search engines from developing. Clearly, both companies would like their mutually beneficial relationship to remain intact.
Of course, in the last few months, Apple has also had its own public problems with artificial intelligence. After presenting big plans for how Apple Intelligence will work in 2024, Apple had to postpone the updated Siri, the centerpiece of its presentation, until the end of this year. Ultimately, the company decided to work with third-party AI models because its own systems were not up to snuff. Perhaps it was this change that started the talk of adding AI search engines to Safari.
