Apple Inc is “actively looking at” revamping the Safari Web browser on its devices to focus on artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search engines, a seismic shift for the industry hastened by the potential end of a longtime partnership with Google.
Apple senior vice president of services Eddy Cue made the disclosure on Wednesday during his testimony in the US Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Alphabet Inc. The heart of the dispute is the two companies’ estimated US$20 billion-a-year deal that makes Google the default offering for queries in Apple’s browser. The case could force the tech giants to unwind the pact, upending how the iPhone and other devices have long operated.
Beyond that upheaval, AI is already making gains with consumers.
Photo: Bloomberg
Cue said that searches on Safari dipped for the first time last month, which he attributed to people using AI, adding that he believes that AI search providers, including OpenAI, Perplexity AI Inc and Anthropic PBC, would eventually replace standard search engines such as Google.
He said he believed Apple would bring those options to Safari in the future.
“We will add them to the list — they probably won’t be the default,” Cue said, adding that they still need to improve.
The company has had some discussions with Perplexity, he said.
“Prior to AI, my feeling around this was, none of the others were valid choices,” Cue said. “I think today there is much greater potential, because there are new entrants attacking the problem in a different way.”
The looming shift is a giant one for the iconic iPhone and a company with more than 2 billion active devices. Since Apple’s original smartphone launched in 2007, users have navigated the Web by making searches through Google. Now, consumers would enter a universe dominated by AI from multiple companies.
Apple currently offers OpenAI’s ChatGPT as an option in the Siri digital assistant and is expected to add Gemini, Google’s AI search product, later this year.
Apple also looked at Anthropic, Perplexity, China-based DeepSeek (深度求索) and Grok from Elon Musk’s xAI for this purpose, Cue said.
The agreement with OpenAI allows it to add other AI providers to the company’s operating system, including Apple’s own, he added.
Before ChatGPT was chosen last year as part of Apple Intelligence in iOS 18, there was a “bake-off” with Google, Cue said, adding that Google had provided a term sheet that “had a lot of things Apple wouldn’t agree to and didn’t agree to with OpenAI.”
Technology is changing fast enough that people might not even use the same devices in a few years, Cue said.
“You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now, as crazy as it sounds,” he said. “The only way you truly have true competition is when you have technology shifts. Technology shifts create these opportunities. AI is a new technology shift, and it’s creating new opportunities for new entrants.”
To improve, AI players would need to enhance their search indexes, Cue said.
However, even if that does not happen quickly, they have other features that are “so much better that people will switch,” he said.
“There’s enough money now, enough large players, that I don’t see how it doesn’t happen,” he said, referring to a switch from standard search to AI.
Still, Cue said he believed Google should remain the default in Safari, adding that he has lost sleep over the possibility of losing the revenue sharing from their agreement.
Apple’s pact with Google for regular search still has the most favorable financial terms, he said.
Last year, Apple and Google expanded their deal to include Google Lens integration as part of the Visual Intelligence feature on the latest iPhones. That allows a user to take a picture and use Google AI to analyze it.
Apple’s agreement with Microsoft Corp’s Bing — a non-default option in Safari — was recently amended to be a year-to-year arrangement, Cue said.
After several years flying high as Asia’s best Nvidia Corp proxy, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is increasingly vying with other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks for investor attention. Stock traders are chasing a wider array of beneficiaries as mainstream usage of AI creates demand for hardware beyond the most-advanced chips TSMC makes for Nvidia. Subthemes from the deepening memory crunch to advances in robotics are also luring bids. At the same time, investment caps on single stocks are pushing funds to diversify, while retail investors long familiar with TSMC through its US depositary receipts are being offered a broader set of
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS