Since Chatgpt burst into the stage in 2022, investors have wondered about the implications for Google. Mainly: what happens to the company if many people are starting to use AI engines to answer questions instead of the dominant search engine of Google?
Now it seems that it could happen.
Eddy Cue, an Apple leader, said research on Apple's Safari browser has shrunk for the very first time in April – a change he set up for people using AI instead.
CUE did this disclosure Wednesday while testifying in the federal antitrust trial against Google's parent company, Alphabet, because Apple receives more than $ 20 billion per year from Google to make it the default search engine on Apple devices.
He also said that Apple would probably add AI engines as an alternatives to search for his devices over time, Bloomberg reports::
[Cue] noted that research on safari soaked for the first time last month, which it attributed to people using AI. CUE said he thought that IA research suppliers, including Openai, Perplexity AI Inc. and Anthropic PBC, may replace standard search engines like Google. He said he thought that Apple would add these players as options in Safari in the future. “We will add them to the list-they will probably not be the default,” he said, adding that they still need to improve.
Cue's testimony explains perfectly a major reason why investors have paid money into AI companies like Openai to increasingly enormous assessments: they hope that at least, they will be able to carve out part of Google's property on the stock market – the main reason why Google is worth $ 2 billion today.
This perspective is also what prompted Google to turn itself In an AI company, by transforming conventional research into requests, it responds with its Gemini AI engine. Early stumbling trees in these efforts have generated many mockery – see glue Pizza – but Google remained with it, insisting that users like the results.
When calling the company's profits last month, the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, said that its efforts were working and that its AI engine had contributed to increasing the volume of research: “almost a year after launching AI in the United States, we continue to see that the growth in use increases as people learn that research is more useful for more. declared to analysts.
Cue's testimony suggests that these efforts have not been sufficient to protect the Google market. Google shares dropped more than 7% on Wednesday.
Google published a statement on Wednesday by contesting the statement of Cue and said that it continues to see “the overall growth in research requests”.
“”This includes an increase in the total of requests from Apple devices and platforms, “said the press release.
