- There may be a big change coming to iPhone search features as users know them. Apple senior vice president of services Eddy Cue said in a testimony the company is considering revamping Safari’s search feature to incorporate more AI features. For the first time in 22 years, Apple saw a decrease in Safari search volumes, with Cue blaming an increase in AI searches.
Google may be at a crossroads on the future of its search engine as AI becomes an increasingly popular and convenient means of finding information.
Testifying in an antitrust trial regarding Google, Apple senior vice president of services Eddy Cue said fewer iPhone users are using Google’s search feature on its Safari web browser, turning instead to AI features.
“For the first time ever in over 20—I think we’ve been at this for 22 years—last month, our search volume actually went down,” Cue said, according to MLex’s report of the testimony.
“That has never happened in 20 years,” he added. “If you ask what’s happening, it’s because people are using ChatGPT. They’re using Perplexity. I use it at times.”
The Department of Justice and a coalition of states recently sued Google’s parent Alphabet, claiming the tech giant’s exclusivity deals with companies like Apple were monopolistic. The ruling from the lawsuit could break up a reported $20 billion-a-year deal between the two tech giants—a blow to both of them.
Apple is already “actively looking at” revamping Safari without the Google feature, instead planning to better integrate AI tools like OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic, Cue said. While the senior vice president said the company has had conversations with Perplexity, the AI search provider would likely not be the browser’s default.
Investors were initially shocked at the disclosure. Google’s stock was trading down as much as 8% Wednesday following the testimony—wiping out about $140 of its market capitalization—but its share price has since recovered. Apple shares were down 1.1% at market close on Wednesday and are up about 2% as of Thursday afternoon.
Google said in a statement posted on its website Wednesday it continues to see overall query growth on its platform.
“That includes an increase in total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms,” the statement said. “More generally, as we enhance Search with new features, people are seeing that Google Search is more useful for more of their queries — and they’re accessing it for new things and in new ways, whether from browsers or the Google app, using their voice or Google Lens.”
Apple and Google did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
What it means for Google and Apple
Beyond Cue’s comments, there’s already evidence that internet users are turning away from traditional search engines to social media and AI to gather information quickly. A Bernstein Research report from September 2024, citing Forbes Advisor and Talker Research of 2,000 Americans, noted that 45% of Gen Z are more likely to use “social searching” on social media instead of Google. About 35% of millennials, 20% of Gen X, and less than 10% of Boomers use “social searching” by comparison.
The number of Zoomers using TikTok and Instagram as primary search engines has jumped from 40% in 2016 to 52% in 2023, according to data from GWI Core, the report said.
“Younger audiences are ‘searching’, not ‘Googling’,” Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik and colleagues said in a note accompanying the research. “And they increasingly head to social media like TikTok for restaurant recommendations, directly to scaled aggregators like Amazon for retail, and Generative AI search like ChatGPT to get their homework done.”
Despite Cue’s indication that some users may prefer AI to Google, Douglas Anmuth, head of U.S. internet equity research at JPMorgan, believes it’s not time for Google to panic.
“Cue’s comments suggest that AI providers have improved dramatically over the past couple years,” Anmuth said in a Thursday note to investors. “And we recognize they present an elevated degree of competition for Google, albeit one we believe is manageable through continued product innovation and execution.”
Google has actually gained market share on Apple’s web browser, with Chrome’s share increasing from 47% to 53% from 2020 to 2025 year-to-date, Anmuth said, citing data from StatCounter. Meanwhile, Safari’s market share among web browsers decreased from 37% to 31% in the same time period. Anmuth argued that Google is also benefiting from an increase in Gemini AI usage.
The stakes are high for Apple, too. With its own Apple Intelligence lagging, the company has consistently relied on third-party AI platforms. Apple minted an agreement with OpenAI to lean on ChatGPT as part of Apple Intelligence in its iOS 18 operating system. With the emergence of DeepSeek as a cheaper open-source alternative to other AI models, Apple may benefit from increased competition driving down costs and spurring innovation among future AI suitors.
“Apple wasn’t in the business of training their own models,” Aaron Levie, CEO of cloud-based storage company Box, told Fortunein January. “So Apple wants as many breakthroughs to happen in the open-source space as possible because they can just run those on their phones and then deliver…intelligence to all their users without them having to have the kind of capital expenditures of the other companies.”
