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What just happened? Apple’s Eddy Cue testified in court yesterday in the remedies phase of the DoJ’s lawsuit against Google parent Alphabet, and he had a lot to say. Cupertino’s SVP of services said people “may not need an iPhone 10 years from now,” AI could replace traditional search engines, and Apple expects to introduce AI services to Safari in the future. He also said search query volumes on Safari, which uses Google as the default search engine, declined last month, a claim that Google has denied.
Cue was asked about the effect AI is having on search engine companies like Google and how businesses are struggling to adjust. “People still are going to need toothpaste 20 years from now, 40 years from now. You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now. As crazy as that sounds,” he said.
“You have to earn it. You have to develop. And so what we’ve seen always happen is the only way that you truly have real competition is when there’s technology shifts.”
Cue is talking about phones, not just iPhones, being replaced by something else in a decade as new technologies arrive.
“Technology shifts create these opportunities,” he continued. “AI is a new technology shift, and it’s creating new opportunities for new entrants.”
Cue talked about how Apple exemplified a company not becoming complacent when it essentially made its once-hit product, the iPod, obsolete.
“We killed the iPod ourselves with the iPhone. Most companies have a very difficult time killing themselves when new technology comes along because you’re afraid, why would you kill the golden goose, in a sense. And so, what I see generally is new technologies come about, new companies get formed, the incumbents have a hard time with it.”
Cue also revealed during his hour-long testimony that Apple has been in discussions with OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic about adding AI search engines to Safari. He believes AI search providers will eventually replace traditional search engines like Google, hence Apple looking at these services now.
Cue did note, however, that the AI services won’t be default options for Safari as they still need to improve. He added that nobody had been able to compete with Google as the default search engine before the AI revolution.
Cue’s final revelation was that search query volumes on Apple devices declined for the first time in over 20 years last month. He blames this on more people using AI tools such as ChatGPT.
Google released a statement this morning responding to Cue’s claim. The company says it continues to see an increase in overall query growth, which includes an increase in total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms.
“More generally, as we enhance Search with new features, people are seeing that Google Search is more useful for more of their queries – and they’re accessing it for new things and in new ways, whether from browsers or the Google app, using their voice or Google Lens.”
The US District Court last year ruled that Google had illegally exploited its dominance in the search engine market. Apple’s multi-billion dollar deal with Google to make it the default search engine on iPhones is part of the case. The current trial will determine what penalties Google receives. The DoJ wants Google to sell Chrome, which OpenAI has declared an interest in buying.
Masthead: Solen Feyissa
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