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There may be a big change coming to the iPhone search features As consumers know them. Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue said the company is considering updating the Safari search function to include more AI features. For the first time in 22 years, Apple has noted a reduction in safari search volumes, with the cue blaming an increase in demand for AI.
Google can be at a crossroads for the future of its search engine, as AI is becoming an increasingly popular and convenient means of finding information.
Testimonies in Antitrust Testing with regard to Google, Apple’s senior Vice President Eddy Cue said that less iPhone users use Google search feature in their web browser Safari by turning to AI features instead.
“For the first time in over 20 – I think we have been in this for 22 years – a long month, our search volume has actually dropped,” Ki said, according to the Mlex report on the testimony.
“This has never happened for 20 years,” he added. “If you ask what is happening, it’s because people use Chatgpt. They use bewilderment. I use it at times.”
The Ministry of Justice and Coalition of countries have recently filed Google’s parental alphabet establishments, claiming that deals on the exclusivity of the technological giant with companies such as Apple are monopolistic. The decision in the trial can destroy the reported deal by $ 20 billion a year between the two technology gigantic-outputs of both.
Apple is already “actively looking” by Safari’s upgrade without the Google feature, instead plans to integrate better AI tools such as Openai, Lefplexity and Anthropic, Cue said. While the senior vice president said the company had conversations with bewilderment, the AI search provider would probably not be the default browser.
Initially, investors were shocked by the disclosure. Google’s shares traded 8% on Wednesday after testimony – tingling about $ 140 from its market capitalization – but since then its stock price has been restored. Apple’s shares dropped by 1.1% in Market Close on Wednesday and were about 2% by Thursday afternoon.
Google said in a statement posted on his website on Wednesday that he continues to see the overall growth of his platform’s requests.
“This includes an increase in general requests coming from Apple’s devices and platforms,” the statement said. “In general, as we improve demand with new features, people see that Google search is more useful for more than their inquiries -and they have access to it for new things and in new ways, whether from the browsers or the Google app, using your Google voice or lens.”
Apple and Google did not respond to FortuneRequest for comment.
What does it mean to Google and Apple
Beyond Cue’s comments, there is already evidence that Internet users are diverting from traditional social media and AI search engines to collect information quickly. A Bernstein study report of September 2024, citing a forbes and Talker Research advisor to 2000 Americans, notes that 45% of Gen Z are more likely to use “social demand” on social media instead of Google. About 35% of millennia, 20% of Gen X and less than 10% of boomers use “social demand” to compare.
The number of increases using Tiktok and Instagram as the main search engines jumped from 40% in 2016 to 52% in 2023, according to GWI Core, the report said.
“The younger audience is looking, not” googling “, said Bernstein analyst Mark Schmulik and his colleagues in a note accompanying the study. “And they are increasingly heading to social media as Tiktok for restaurant recommendations, directly to large -scale aggregators such as Amazon for retail and generative search for AI like Chatgpt to do their home tasks.”
Despite the Cue indication that some users may prefer AI to Google, Douglas Anmuth, the head of US stock studies on the Internet in JPMorgan, thinks it is not time to go into panic.
“Cue’s comments show that AI suppliers have improved dramatically over the last few years,” Anmut said on Thursday, an investor note. “And we admit that they present an increased degree of competition for Google, albeit one that we believe is managed by continuing the innovation and the implementation of products.”
Google has actually won a market share in the Apple web browser, with Chrome’s share increased from 47% to 53% from 2020 to 2025, Anmut said, citing StatCounter data. Meanwhile, Safari’s market share of web browsers decreased from 37% to 31% over the same period. Anmuth claims that Google also takes advantage of increasing the use of Gemini AI.
Bets are also high for Apple. With its own Apple intelligence, the company constantly relies on third -party AI platforms. Apple highlighted an agreement with Openai to lean on Chatgpt as part of Apple Intelligence in its iOS 18 operating system. With the appearance of Deepseek
“Apple was not involved in training its own models,” said Aaron Levy, CEO of Cloud-based storage company in front of Box Fortune In January. “So Apple wants to happen as much breakthroughs as possible in the open source space, because they can simply perform those on their phones and then deliver … Intelligence to all their users without having to have the type of capital costs of other companies.”
This story was originally presented on Fortune.com