Google searches are falling in Safari for the first time ever — probably because of AI

Google searches fell in Safari for the first time ever last month, Apple’s senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, said during Google’s antitrust trial on Wednesday. “That has never happened in 22 years,” Cue added.

Cue linked the dip in searches to the growing use of AI, which the company is now considering putting into Safari. The rise of web search in AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot may make users less inclined to visit Google as their primary way of finding information.

Google currently pays Apple around $20 billion to make its search engine the default in Safari, and a decrease in searches could mean less money for Apple. “I’ve lost a lot of sleep thinking about it,” Cue said, when considering what Apple would do without revenue from Google Search.

In a statement published on Wednesday, Google said it continues to “see overall query growth in Search,” including on “Apple’s devices and platforms” — but it doesn’t single out Safari. “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 company said.

As Google and other companies continue to embrace AI, traffic to websites that would normally receive clicks from search results is falling, dealing a huge blow to some businesses. In response to concerns from independent site owners, Google Search vice president Pandu Nayak said he can’t offer “any guarantees” that things will turn around.

Update, May 8th: Added a statement from Google.