Apple is looking more seriously at AI search inside mobile Safari, a change that could reshape one of the most important search defaults on the iPhone. The comments came from Apple executive Eddie Cue while he testified for the US Department of Justice in the Alphabet/Google antitrust trial, as first reported in Bloomberg.
The central point is simple: Apple is no longer treating traditional search choices as the only serious options for Safari. Cue said Apple is “actively looking at” shifting the focus of mobile Safari’s search experience toward AI search engines, even if those tools are not yet ready to become the default.
Why Safari search is suddenly in play
Safari’s address bar is a high-value gateway to the web. On iPhones today, users can choose a default search engine in the Settings app, and the current list includes Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia. Google remains the default option.
That default is also part of a much larger business relationship. Google pays Apple an enormous amount of money, estimated at $20 billion per year, to stay in that position. Cue’s testimony matters because it suggested that Apple sees new pressure on the old search model.
Cue noted that searches in Safari fell for the first time ever last year. He attributed that decline to users increasingly turning to large language model-based solutions for searches. In other words, the search habit itself may be changing, not just the company that handles the query.
That shift is important for both Apple and Google. If more users begin asking AI systems for answers instead of using a familiar search box, the default search engine position becomes less predictable. It may still be valuable, but its future could depend on whether the default can handle the kind of queries people now expect AI tools to answer.
What Cue said about AI search engines
Cue described a clear before-and-after view of the search market. Speaking about Apple’s deal with Google, he said, “Prior to AI, my feeling around this was, none of the others were valid choices.” He added: “I think today there is much greater potential because there are new entrants attacking the problem in a different way.”
Those new entrants include companies like Perplexity, which aims to offer a chat-like alternative to semantic search engines. The source also points to others like OpenAI. Cue said Apple has already had talks with Perplexity.
For users, the most practical detail is where these options may appear. Cue said of AI-based search engines in general, “we will add them to the list,” referring to the default search engine selector in Safari settings. That would put AI search tools beside the current options users can already pick on their phones.
At the same time, Cue drew a line between being available and being the default. He said AI search engines “probably won’t be the default” because they still need to improve, especially around indexing. That leaves Apple in a middle position: interested enough to add AI search options, but not ready to make them the main Safari search experience.
How this differs from Apple’s chatbot option
The testimony focused on a specific question: what search engine handles a query typed into Safari’s address bar. That is different from Apple’s AI chatbot extension on the latest version of iOS.
That chatbot extension currently uses just OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Apple plans to give users the option to pick alternatives like Google’s Gemini later. But Safari search is a separate surface, and it is tied directly to the default search engine setting that millions of users may never change.
The distinction matters because a chatbot extension and a browser search default solve different problems. A chatbot can sit as a separate AI assistant. A Safari search default affects ordinary web navigation, quick lookups, and the everyday act of typing a question or phrase into the address bar.
If Apple adds AI search engines to Safari’s selector, users would gain another type of default choice. The list would no longer be limited to established search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia. It could also include AI search tools that answer in a more conversational way.
The strengths and weaknesses Apple has to weigh
AI search tools bring clear advantages, according to the source. New deep research and agentic features can respond to natural language queries with a more robust process. For example, a user could ask about a movie using a long description such as “I saw a movie that started with a teen lip-syncing in her bedroom, and it had a girl dressed as Thor stuck on a skyscraper.”
Instead of matching only keywords, these systems can run multiple searches before returning a result. The source describes the outcome as usually accurate or at least helpful. That kind of experience explains why Apple may see “much greater potential” in AI search now than it did before.
But the drawbacks are also significant. AI search tools may hallucinate incorrect answers when a prompt falls into knowledge and training blind spots. The source specifically points to Google’s AI search summaries as an infamous example, while noting that those summaries are much less sophisticated.
That risk helps explain why Apple might add AI search engines without immediately making them the default. A default search engine needs to be dependable across a very wide range of queries. If indexing and accuracy still need improvement, Apple has reason to treat AI search as an option before treating it as the main answer.
Why the market reaction matters
Cue’s comments also carried financial weight. Both Google and Apple shares dropped after the remarks, as investors feared this may be the first sign that the companies’ search deal will not last.
The reaction shows how much is tied to Safari’s search defaults. For Google, the default position helps protect its longstanding search dominance. For Apple, the arrangement is lucrative and estimated at $20 billion per year.
Still, Cue’s testimony suggests Apple is watching user behavior closely. If Safari searches fell for the first time ever last year because people are moving toward large language model-based tools, Apple has a practical reason to update the search choices it offers.
The likely near-term picture is not a sudden replacement of Google. Based on Cue’s comments, AI search engines are more likely to appear as additional choices in Safari settings while Apple waits for the technology to improve. Even that step would be meaningful: it would put AI search directly inside one of the most important search decision points on the iPhone.