Is Apple Finally Breaking Up With Google — For AI?
A stunning admission that search could be replaced by AI on iPhones shows the shift to chatbots is real.
AI is coming for search.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
In technology, disruption can happen slowly and then all at once. Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit is praying for the former right now.
Executives at the company have been racing to stave off a decline to its bread-and-butter search business ever since ChatGPT exploded onto the scene in late 2022. Now Apple Inc., one of Google’s most important partners in that business, has confirmed the search giant’s efforts aren’t working. The company is “actively looking at” revamping the Safari web browser on iPhones and other devices so that instead of offering Google by default, they’ll potentially show other AI tools from firms like OpenAI, Perplexity AI Inc. and Anthropic PBC.