It has been revealed that last month, Google searches in Apple’s Safari browser declined for the first time. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, says, “[This] has never happened in 22 years.”
What does he think has caused this drop? AI, of course.
During the DOJ’s antitrust trial against Google, he testified, “People are using AI,” and he believes we are seeing a ‘fundamental shift’ in how people search. With AI clawing into the superiority of conventional search.
This news is something the entire industry should sit up and pay attention to. Why? It signifies a behavioural shift in users’ search journeys that doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
Cue admitted that Apple is exploring a new approach to its search engine – with a priority shift to AI-powered search engines. Examples mentioned were OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic, although he caveated that they aren’t ready to be the defaults yet.
He stated, “There is much greater potential. They’re attacking the problem in a different way.”
Some of you may be thinking: Doesn’t the introduction of AI overviews make Google an AI search engine? Yes, it does. In fact, 1.5 billion users each month see AI overviews. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude are barely reaching these numbers – even when combined!
So, there’s nothing to worry about yet, but definitely one to keep in mind.
To find out more, check out the Search Engine Land article here.
