A few months after Google fully embraced AI-powered search, Apple is now exploring partnerships with AI organisations to enable AI-backed searches for its Safari browser. This was revealed by Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue, during a recent testimony in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

Cue explained that the pivot toward AI search is partly due to Safari experiencing a decline in search traffic for the first time in 22 years. But even at that, Apple still maintains a cautious stance on AI search adoption, based on “Them not being good enough to date.” However, he acknowledged a growing belief that AI-based search providers could eventually replace traditional search engines.

As part of its plan, Apple has initiated discussions with AI players like Perplexity, OpenAI, and Anthropic. While OpenAI seems to be the leading choice for Apple due to its existing role in the company’s current AI service offerings, Apple is keeping things open-ended in case a competitor springs up with something better down the line. “We have to make sure we have the capability to switch if we have to,” Cue said per The Verge.

While Apple is still weighing its AI search options, Google has doubled down on its lead with the rollout of AI Mode, a generative AI-powered feature built into its search overviews. The new mode enhances regular search by letting users ask questions via text, voice, or images and get contextual, chatbot-style responses.

Beyond simple queries, AI Mode supports deeper topic exploration, follow-up questions, and summaries linked to web sources. Users can also pick up past conversations through the AI Mode History feature.

The feature is currently available to users aged 18 and above in the U.S., with global expansion expected soon.