Apple Wants to Rebuild Search with AI, Could Help Cut Google’s Cord

US trustbusters just struck a double blow in their major battle with Google after a long-awaited decision in a four-year-old case raised the stakes for yet another tech giant: Apple.

A federal judge in Washington dealt Google a blow Monday by ruling that its multibillion-dollar annual payments to make its search engine the default on other companies’ devices — most popularly Apple’s — violate antitrust laws.

Of course, this is bad news for Google, which, as my colleague Hugh Langley notes, could lose an estimated $30 billion in search revenue if it ultimately loses its privilege of being the leading search portal on Apple devices.

How bad is it for Apple? Theoretically, pretty bad.

First, Apple’s deal with Google, first struck in the 2000s, has proven to be highly lucrative. Court documents released this year showed the deal would generate $20 billion for Apple in 2022, so the possibility of losing some of that sum is a disadvantage.

Apple would also be forced to give its users alternatives to a product that has become synonymous with search for nearly three decades. That would be difficult for Apple, which wants its customers to think they are getting a premium offering.

In reality, though, Apple may not have to worry too much if it needs to reduce its reliance on Google for search on its devices. It has AI plans to fall back on.

Rebuilding Search with AI

Apple Intelligence can help users think about search differently.

Apple

When the CEO of Apple Tim is cooking unveiled Apple Intelligence at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, offering a glimpse into a future in which artificial intelligence will be able to solve many of the problems that users have traditionally turned to search engines for.

Apple says its plans for generative AI are designed to serve as a “personal intelligence system” for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users, combining “the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that is incredibly useful and relevant.”

In other words, Apple hopes that AI will be able to intelligently respond to queries and support users by understanding what is really important to them.

Also part of Apple Intelligence is a modernized Siri, Apple’s chatbot that users can enhance by giving them permissions to connect to OpenAI’s industry-leading technology, ChatGPT.

While Siri has been Apple’s weak point for years, the company hopes that its “richer language-understanding capabilities” that enable it to deliver “more natural, more contextually appropriate, and more personalized responses” will make it as useful as search.

Apple isn’t alone in this thinking. Across Silicon Valley, AI modelers have been busy showcasing a future in which chatbots will serve as “agents” that respond to user needs. The ability to answer search queries should be a primary function of these AI agents.

That’s why when ChatGPT first came out, Google reportedly issued a “code red.” The idea that their powerful search engine might lose traffic to a generative AI chatbot that seemingly had the answers to all the questions they would normally type into Google was clearly a huge concern.

Of course, it’s not yet clear what Apple’s future relationship with Google will look like. Monday’s ruling did not include any remedies.

It’s unlikely to find a deal as lucrative as the one with Google in search anytime soon. ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, isn’t paying Apple for the AI partnership.

Still, Apple’s bet on AI gives it a chance to give consumers an alternative way to search the web, one it hopes they’ll find just as useful as Google.