Google contests Eddy Cue’s declare that Apple customers are looking much less

In courtroom testimony yesterday, Apple SVP Eddy Cue informed the choose that utilization of search in Safari fell for the primary time ever in April, suggesting customers are turning to AI options like ChatGPT as a substitute.

This led to Google traders getting chilly ft on the search big’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 mentioned yesterday. Google mentioned that it continues to see rising engagement with search, together with on Apple gadgets.

Right here’s what Google mentioned in full:

We proceed to see general question development in Search. That features a rise in complete queries coming from Apple’s gadgets and platforms. Extra usually, 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 sit up for sharing extra at Google I/O.

Whereas there isn’t sufficient element to completely clarify the discrepancy, maybe Cue was referring to utilization inside Safari and Google is suggesting that utilization by means of different means on Apple’s platforms — by means of Google’s apps within the App Retailer for example — makes up for that hole.

It’s additionally value noting that Cue made his feedback within the context of a courtroom listening to over whether or not the profitable Apple-Google search deal ought to be allowed to proceed, below the guise of whether or not Google has an anticompetitive monopoly on the search market.

Clearly, Apple desires that deal to stay in place, because it income 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’s not monopolistic in nature and will stay.

Cue additionally indicated that Apple can be including various AI-powered search suppliers like Anthropic and Perplexity to Safari as search engine choices within the coming months.