• Apple exec Eddy Cue explained why the company has not built its own search engine.
• Google has a deal with Apple to be its default search engine, and Apple wants to keep it that way.
• The exec explained Apple's reasoning in a filing related to the DOJ's antitrust case against Google.

Apple says it plans to stick to what it knows best, and that doesn't include building its own search engine.

In court papers filed this week in Washington, DC, Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services, listed the reasons the iPhone maker does not want to create its own search engine.

The filing was made in connection to the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Google, which argues that Google has an illegal monopoly over the search engine market. One of the DOJ's key pieces of evidence in the trial is a revenue-sharing deal between Google and Apple that makes Google the default search engine on Apple's Safari browser on all its devices. Google has been paying Apple for this default search engine status since 2002. Google's payout has increased dramatically over the years, rising to around $20 billion in 2022.

Apple had asked to participate in the trial to defend its partnership with Google, Reuters reported. And in this week's filing, Cue explained the motivation behind the deal, including why Apple uses Google's search engine instead of creating its own.

He gave three main reasons:

1. Developing a search engine would "cost billions of dollars and take many years," Cue said in the filing. He added that it would divert employees and capital investment away from the company's other areas of growth.
2. Search is "rapidly evolving" alongside artificial intelligence, and investing in it now would be "economically risky," Cue said.
3. Search engines require a platform to sell targeted advertising, and that is not a core part of Apple's business, Cue said. He said Apple also does not have the staff or operational infrastructure to build out a successful search advertising business. And he said it could conflict with Apple's "longstanding privacy commitments."

Cue said the DOJ is wrongly assuming that, without a deal with Google, Apple would create its own search engine. Cue said that's not likely, regardless of the case's outcome. And he warned that if the DOJ blocks Google's revenue-sharing deal with Apple, then "it would hamstring Apple's ability to continue delivering products that best serve its users' needs."

Cue also highlighted Apple's revenue-sharing agreements with other search engines. These include deals that give Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia access to Apple users' Safari search queries, he said.

In 2018, Apple considered buying Microsoft's Bing search engine or investing in a multibillion-dollar deal to allow Bing to supplement some of Google's dominance on Apple devices, CNBC reported in 2023. But the deal, which could have tarnished Apple's relationship with Google, ultimately did not go through, according to the report.

• OpenAI is considering making a web browser, sources told The Information.
• The browser would be integrated with ChatGPT, according to the report.
• Google is doubling down on AI for search, too, starting on mobile.

OpenAI is eyeing two territories that have long been dominated by Google, according to a report from The Information: web browsing and search.

The AI startup is at the early stages of considering the development of a web browser that would be integrated with OpenAI's ChatGPT, sources familiar with the matter told The Information.

OpenAI has also approached travel, retail, real estate, and food websites about a search tool that would allow visitors to interact with their sites in the same conversational way a user might interact with ChatGPT, according to the Thursday report.

One source who has seen the prototype of the tool told The Information that the new product is called NLWeb, or Natural Language Web.

Spokespeople for Google and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Developing a web browser and a search tool would be a bold step into two fields where Google has — for now — a comfortable market dominance.

As of August, Google Chrome held about 65% of the global web browser market share, according to Statista, a data analytics firm. And as of January, Google Search accounted for about 82% of the global search engine market share. Search is a big business for Google, generating $49.4 billion in the three months ending September 30 — more than half of the company's revenue.

Google is also doubling down on AI for search. The company said last month that it was rolling out a series of changes to Search, starting on mobile. An entirely new Search experience uses AI to organize the page's layout, grouping results into different categories and pushing videos, forum links, and other widgets to the top of the page.

Multiple sources told The Information that OpenAI was nowhere close to launching a browser. But in a sign of the company's interest in exploring such a product, OpenAI hired two key developers of Google Chrome this year, including Ben Goodger, a founding member of the Chrome team.

OpenAI already has positioned ChatGPT as a search engine rival with the release of ChatGPT search in October. The feature allows the chatbot to provide real-time answers on areas like the weather or the stock market.

Google's dominance in search and web browsing is indisputable, but that may come under threat with the Justice Department's request this week to force a sale of Chrome. In August, a judge ruled that Google maintains an illegal monopoly of the advertising and search markets.

Google said it would appeal any ruling on the case and that the DOJ is pushing a "radical agenda."