In court docket testimony yesterday, Apple SVP Eddy Cue instructed the decide that utilization of search in Safari fell for the primary time ever in April, suggesting customers are turning to AI alternate options like ChatGPT as an alternative.
This led to Google buyers getting chilly ft on the search large’s outlook, with the corporate inventory dropping about 8% in response. Nonetheless, Google has now formally contested Cue’s feedback in a firm weblog put up.
Google launched a brief assertion on its weblog that appears to run counter to what Cue stated yesterday. Google stated that it continues to see rising engagement with search, together with on Apple gadgets.
Right here’s what Google stated in full:
We proceed to see total question development in Search. That features a rise in whole queries coming from Apple’s gadgets and platforms. Extra typically, as we improve Search with new options, individuals are seeing that Google Search is extra helpful for extra of their queries — they usually’re accessing it for brand spanking new issues and in new methods, whether or not from browsers or the Google app, utilizing their voice or Google Lens. We’re excited to proceed this innovation and stay up for sharing extra at Google I/O.
Whereas there isn’t sufficient element to totally clarify the discrepancy, maybe Cue was referring to utilization inside Safari and Google is suggesting that utilization via different means on Apple’s platforms — via Google’s apps within the App Retailer for example — makes up for that hole.
It’s additionally price noting that Cue made his feedback within the context of a court docket listening to over whether or not the profitable Apple-Google search deal ought to be allowed to proceed, beneath the guise of whether or not Google has an anticompetitive monopoly on the search market.
Clearly, Apple needs that deal to stay in place, because it earnings tens of billions of {dollars} per 12 months from the enterprise. So, it’s in Cue’s pursuits to depict the deal as outmoded and more and more irrelevant, such that it isn’t monopolistic in nature and may stay.
Cue additionally indicated that Apple could be including various AI-powered search suppliers like Anthropic and Perplexity to Safari as search engine choices within the coming months.
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