Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Apple has confirmed it: the company plans to integrate artificial intelligence seekers such as perplexity or claude directly in Safari. The movement is announced within the framework of the antitrust trial that could force Google to sell Chrome and show a change in the situation when of access to user information, because AI is changing everything.
The most striking data was offered by Cue himself in his testimony: For the first time, the number of searches made from Safari has fallen. And it is not a marginal drop, but a phenomenon that Apple attributes directly to the rise of the new search services based on AI such as those offered by OpenAi, Perplexity, Anthropic or even Grok, of Xai. Also Google, although it seems to have arrived a little late to the trend on this occasion.
Be that as it may, Apple does not plan to replace Google as a safari default search engine, an agreement by which those of Cupertino receive around 20,000 million dollars a year. However, the integration of these new alternatives reflects a clear trend: users are beginning to look otherwise. Cue explained that Apple has already started conversations with Perplexity, although it has also been interested in options such as Depseek or XAI solutions, before opting for the service that lace more with its interests.
In fact, Apple has already taken steps in this address: The company will integrate chatgpt in Siri with iOS 18 And Gemini support is expected to also arrive soon. In this aspect, Apple does not marry anyone with anyone. But this new offensive involves opening safari to a plurality of engines, not only of technology, but also of different philosophy and business model. Of course, none of them will occupy the default place, at least shortly.
The play, in any case, has first -level economic and strategic implications, and is that Apple has not yet reached a new agreement with Googleamong other things, due to the conditions imposed by the latter in its term sheetwhich were unacceptable for Cupertino’s company. According to Cue, Apple’s current approach is to explore alternatives that provide added value, although it recognizes that search engines with AI must still improve their results rate.
Google has not taken to react to these statements and the echo they have had in the press, leaving the information that aims at a fall in their market share and, in a brief statement, the Internet giant ensures that the use of its service continues to increase. The company argues that It remains the referent of searchesdespite the entrance of new players and the loss of some traction in key browsers such as the aforementioned safari.
