Apple is considering adding artificial intelligence-powered search from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic to Safari. Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services, is convinced that AI search will eventually replace standard search engines like Google, Bloomberg reports.
Cue made the statement while testifying in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against Google. The lawsuit centers on a settlement between the two companies worth about $20 billion ($26 billion in 2021 dollars) that makes Google the default search engine in Safari.
AI-powered search won't be enabled by default, but will eventually appear in the browser, Cue said, noting that the company has already been in talks with Perplexity.
During his testimony, Cue also said that Safari search volume fell for the first time last month, saying it was because more people were using artificial intelligence instead of traditional search engines.
Apple already offers its customers integration of OpenAI's ChatGPT into Siri, and could expand its offerings to Google's Gemini by the end of the year. Cue also notes that in addition to Google and OpenAI, the company is considering integrating AI from DeepSeek and xAI.
Despite this, Cue believes Google should remain the default search engine in Safari. The main argument for this is the revenue sharing program from the deal, so the collaboration between Apple and Google on regular search still has the most favorable financial terms.
By the way, during his testimony, Cue also suggested that iPhones could disappear in 10 years. All because of the rapid development of artificial intelligence.