Head of services: Apple is interested in AI search – as an alternative to Google

Apple is said to have made several attempts over the years to implement its own search engine. However, the project was repeatedly buried for various reasons. Now the major competition lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) against Google could lead to at least one key change: the integration of AI search engines in Safari. This is reported by the business news agency Bloomberg.

Cue is looking for Google alternatives

The iPhone manufacturer currently receives around 20 billion US dollars a year for making Google the default search engine in Safari on the iPhone, iPad and Mac. The sum is now acutely at risk – and therefore an important source of revenue for Apple's powerful head of services Eddy Cue, who is used to regular high growth. In view of this, Apple is "actively" looking at equipping Safari with AI-supported search engines. According to Bloomberg, the era that defined the partnership with Google is coming to an end.

On Wednesday, Cue personally made his grand appearance in the DOJ proceedings against Google parent Alphabet Inc. and made corresponding allusions in court. According to the head of services, Apple believed for a long time before the AI boom that search engines apart from Google were "not a sensible choice". "Today, there's more potential there because the new entrants in this space are approaching the problem in a very different way." AI search providers such as OpenAI, Perplexity or Anthropic could replace search engines like Google, he hinted. These will be integrated into Safari in the future. "We will include them in our list." However, AI search engines "probably won't become the default [search] engine", Cue continued. He also stated that Apple had already held initial discussions with Perplexity.

Talks with other AI providers

Cue's statements caused an uproar among Google shareholders on Wednesday afternoon. The company's shares lost around 7.5 percent of their value on the NASDAQ. In after-hours trading, the shares are now back up by more than 1 percent. Apple's share price also fell slightly. Google itself has actually already implemented AI functions in its search. However, incorporating them into Safari would not solve the problem with the competition proceedings. Head of Services Cue also stated that further AI systems could be implemented in iOS. Google's Gemini is considered a possibility alongside the already implemented ChatGPT, but Apple is also said to be looking at Anthropic, Perplexity, DeepSeek and Grok. The contract with OpenAI allows this.

Google is also said to have already made Apple an offer, says Cue. However, the contract was not suitable, for example regarding what Apple and its partner OpenAI are allowed to do. In Cue's opinion, so much is currently happening in the technology industry that he does not know which devices will be used in the future. "It could be that you won't need an iPhone in ten years' time, as crazy as that sounds." Such technology changes create opportunities for "real competition". AI is one such technology change. The AI players must now improve their search indices. These search engines are already so much better that people "will switch over", says Cue. Nevertheless, the Apple services boss wants to keep the contract with Google. He openly admitted how much revenue is involved. He has therefore not been able to sleep. The contract has the most financially lucrative conditions for Apple.

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