Apple Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue testified that the company is "actively exploring" a redesign of its Safari browser to prioritize AI-powered search engines, amid potential fallout from its deal with Google, according to Bloomberg.
Cue disclosed these new details Wednesday while testifying in the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet. The case centers on Apple and Google's $20 billion-a-year deal that designates Google as the default search engine in Apple's Safari browser.
Cue revealed that Safari search volumes declined for the first time in April, prompting the company to evaluate alternatives. He specifically mentioned Perplexity and Anthropic as potential options.
More from Bloomberg:
Technology is changing fast enough that people made not even use the same devices in a few years, Cue said. "You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now as crazy as it sounds," Cue said in a court.
"The only way you truly have true competition is when you have technology shifts. Technology shifts create these opportunities. AI is a new technology shift, and its creating new opportunities for new entrants."
Cue said that, in order to improve, the AI players would need to improve their search indexes. But, even if that doesn't happen quickly, they have other features that are "so much better that people will switch."
"There's enough money now, enough large players, that I don't see how it doesn't happen," he said, referring to a switch from standard search to AI. Cue also said that large language models — the underlying technology for generative AI — will continue to improve, giving users more reason to switch.
Still, he believes Google should remain the default in Safari, saying that he has lost sleep over the possibility of losing the revenue share from their agreement.
Here are the latest headlines:
APPLE'S CUE: LOST SLEEP OVER POSSIBILITY OF LOSING REV. SHARE
APPLE'S CUE: BELIEVES PERPLEXITY, ANTHROPIC COULD BE OPTIONS
APPLE LOOKED AT ANTHROPIC, DEEPSEEK, GROK, PERPLEXITY FOR AI
This news sent Google shares sinking as much as 5%.
Apple shares fell to a session low of 1.7%.
Sliding Apple and Google price action sent US main equity futures lower.
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