Google CEO Sundar Pichai has responded to accusations made by Apple concerning a sudden drop-off in search traffic to Safari.
“We are not seeing any drop in our core search queries,” Pichai said at a tech conference in Mathura, adding that recently RBC Research added that it observed 50 percent increase in Siri-based search from the results Search had on Apple devices.
Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Services at Apple, testified last week as part of the continued antitrust investigation into Google’s search dominance that search volumes had declined for the first time in 22 years for Safari. Cue said the change in attitude was because users increasingly preferred AI-powered search options.
But Pichai took a different view. “We’re seeing query growth overall in search,” he said pointedly. Pushed on Safari search traffic specifically, Pichai responded, “We have a variety of factors on how we look at data across the board.
Search data can be quite noisy, but everything we are seeing appears to be consistent with seeing query growth, including on Apple’s devices and platforms.”
Pichai even mentioned the growing role of Google’s AI-driven features like AI Overviews in the growth pegged to search queries.
He underscored Google’s mission to steer users to the open web, a not-so-subtle shot across the bow of new AI-first search models, which seek to serve direct answers (e.g., Alexa) even at the potential cost of clicks to third-party sites.
“We send more traffic to the web than anyone else and benefits many webmasters with over 13 billion free clicks off search last year,” Pichai countered.
Google CEO compared the current transformation in search to the ever-changing world of online video. He also cited YouTube’s sustained growth despite the emergence of platforms like TikTok, noting that user engagement and product features can help to fuel growth even among new competition. Pichai described a competitive landscape in search that is “very far from a zero-sum game.”
The comments couldn’t have come at a much more inopportune time, either, as it is rumored that Apple wants to insert AI-based search features right in Safari, a feature which may include OpenAI and Perplexity AI -powered services.
It has the potential to undercut Google’s longstanding status as the default search engine for Apple devices, which Google pays billions each year for the privilege.
Google Chrome controls the global browser market with around 66% share, and Safari ca. 17% share, as per current data. In the US alone, Safari has a larger share of the mobile browser market than Chrome, with nearly 50% usage compared to Chrome’s 42%.
Google continues to dominate in the total global search engine market share level — it once hovered at nearly 90% usage share. Yet a change in Safari’s search experience and the rise of AI-powered search interfaces could add new competition to the mix.
Pichai’s remarks indicate that Google is very much aware of these trends, however, and is willing to try to defend its position on the grounds that its overall growth performance and web traffic value is significant.