Google searches fell in Safari for the primary time ever final month, Apple’s senior vice chairman of providers, Eddy Cue, mentioned throughout Google’s antitrust trial on Wednesday. “That has by no means occurred in 22 years,” Cue added.
Cue linked the dip in searches to the rising use of AI, which the corporate is now contemplating placing into Safari. The rise of net search in AI instruments like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot might make customers much less inclined to go to Google as their main means of discovering info.
Google at the moment pays Apple round $20 billion to make its search engine the default in Safari, and a lower in searches may imply much less cash for Apple. “I’ve misplaced a variety of sleep serious about it,” Cue mentioned, when contemplating what Apple would do with out income from Google Search.
The Verge reached out to Google with a request for remark however didn’t instantly hear again.