Apple has officially declared it has no plans to develop its own search engine, with senior executive Eddy Cue outlining the company’s reasoning in court filings related to the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google. The filing sheds light on Apple’s strategic thinking around search technology and artificial intelligence.
In documents submitted this week in Washington, DC, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, provided three primary reasons why the iPhone maker will continue relying on partnerships rather than building proprietary search capabilities. The filing comes as the DOJ argues that Google maintains an illegal monopoly over the search engine market, with Apple’s revenue-sharing deal serving as key evidence.
The Google-Apple partnership has been extraordinarily lucrative, with Google paying Apple approximately $20 billion in 2022 alone to remain the default search engine on Safari across all Apple devices. This arrangement has existed since 2002, though the financial stakes have increased dramatically over two decades.
Cue’s first concern centers on economics and resource allocation. He stated that developing a competitive search engine would “cost billions of dollars and take many years,” diverting crucial employees and capital investment away from Apple’s core growth areas. This represents a fundamental strategic choice about where Apple focuses its innovation efforts.
The second reason directly addresses artificial intelligence’s disruptive impact on search technology. Cue emphasized that search is “rapidly evolving” alongside AI developments, making significant investment now “economically risky.” This acknowledgment highlights how AI is fundamentally reshaping the search landscape, creating uncertainty even for tech giants.
Privacy and business model conflicts form the third pillar of Apple’s reasoning. Search engines require robust targeted advertising platforms—a business Apple has deliberately avoided. Cue noted that Apple lacks both the staff and operational infrastructure for search advertising, and building such capabilities could contradict the company’s “longstanding privacy commitments.”
Cue pushed back against DOJ assumptions, clarifying that Apple would not create its own search engine even if the Google deal were blocked. He warned that preventing the revenue-sharing agreement “would hamstring Apple’s ability to continue delivering products that best serve its users’ needs.”
The filing also revealed Apple maintains similar agreements with Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia. Notably, Apple considered acquiring Microsoft’s Bing in 2018 or investing billions to reduce Google’s dominance, though concerns about damaging the Google relationship ultimately killed the deal.
Key Quotes
Developing a search engine would cost billions of dollars and take many years
Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, explained in court filings why Apple won’t build its own search engine, emphasizing the massive resource commitment required even for a company of Apple’s scale.
Search is rapidly evolving alongside artificial intelligence, and investing in it now would be economically risky
Cue directly acknowledged AI’s disruptive impact on search technology, suggesting that the rapid AI-driven transformation makes major search investments uncertain even for tech giants with deep pockets.
It would hamstring Apple’s ability to continue delivering products that best serve its users’ needs
Cue warned about the consequences if the DOJ blocks the Google revenue-sharing deal, arguing that the partnership is essential to Apple’s product strategy rather than a convenience.
Search engines require a platform to sell targeted advertising, and that is not a core part of Apple’s business
Cue highlighted the fundamental business model incompatibility between search engines and Apple’s privacy-focused approach, noting the company lacks the infrastructure and expertise for search advertising.
Our Take
Apple’s filing reveals a fascinating strategic calculus about AI’s role in reshaping competitive moats. While Apple has invested heavily in on-device AI and machine learning, Cue’s comments suggest the company views AI-powered search as requiring different capabilities—particularly in advertising infrastructure and data collection that conflicts with Apple’s privacy positioning.
This decision may prove prescient or shortsighted depending on how AI search evolves. If conversational AI assistants replace traditional search, Apple’s focus on Siri and on-device intelligence could position it well. However, if search remains central to information access, Apple’s dependence on Google creates strategic vulnerability as AI becomes more integrated into search experiences.
The $20 billion annual payment underscores that Apple is essentially outsourcing AI-powered search innovation to Google, betting that partnership delivers better user experience than internal development. This represents a rare admission of competitive limitations from Apple.
Why This Matters
This filing provides critical insight into how major tech companies view AI’s impact on search technology and business strategy. Apple’s explicit acknowledgment that AI is making search “economically risky” reveals how artificial intelligence is creating uncertainty even for companies with virtually unlimited resources.
The case highlights the intersection of AI innovation, antitrust regulation, and competitive dynamics in the tech industry. As AI transforms search from keyword matching to conversational interfaces and generative answers, the barriers to entry are simultaneously rising and shifting. Apple’s decision to avoid search despite its technical capabilities suggests that AI-powered search requires specialized expertise and infrastructure that even tech giants cannot easily replicate.
For the broader AI industry, this signals that dominant positions in AI-enhanced search may be difficult to challenge, potentially concentrating power among existing players like Google and emerging AI companies like OpenAI. The $20 billion annual payment also demonstrates the enormous economic value of default search positioning in an AI-driven future, with implications for how AI tools will be distributed and monetized across platforms.
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Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/why-apple-wont-build-search-engine-eddy-cue-2024-12