👉 Background: Google and Apple have always had a love-hate thing going on... mostly hate. They also happen to be two of the biggest tech rivals of our generation/ But Google and Apple actually see eye-to-eye in one category. Search. In fact, Google reportedly pays Apple $20 billion USD per year to be the default engine whenever you use Safari browser.

👉 What happened: As part of Google’s ongoing monopoly lawsuit, an Apple Exec had to testify… and he shared some serious tea. He exposed that:

• Apple is actively exploring ways to reshape Safari, which would replace Google as the default search engine.
• Google search traffic declined on Apple devices for the first time in 22 years as result of people using OpenAI or Perplexity for search instead of Google Search.
  

👉 What else: Next minute: Google’s parent company, Alphabet, saw its share price fall more than 6% after investors feared that Google had lost its search dominance - aka its cash cow.

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What's the key learning?

💡In tech, being the default isn’t just a convenience - it’s a huge competitive advantage. Most users stick with whatever option comes pre-selected, especially when it comes to search engines.

💡Google controls about 90% of the global search market, but if Apple decides to integrate AI tools into Safari and drop Google’s default search, then Google’s dominance could weaken significantly.

💡A healthy chunk of Google's search traffic comes from its agreements with Apple and Samsung so this could mean that Google’s “default advantage” may start to crumble. And when your business makes over $260 billion USD a year from ads, losing that 'default' status is an existential threat.