Alphabet Shares Take $115 Billion Blow as Search Warnings Blare

For more than a year, Alphabet shareholders have fretted over long-term risks posed by artificial intelligence to the company's money-printing search business.

- BLOOMBERG

This week the threat became much more immediate.

Court testimony from an Apple executive on Wednesday revealed that the iPhone maker is exploring adding AI services to its web browser for which Google now pays an estimated $20 billion a year to be the default search engine. Potentially more worrisome: searches on Apple's Safari fell for the first time last month, according to Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services.

The revelations implied that queries fielded by rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic already may be eating into Google search, which accounts for more than half of the parent company's revenue and the vast majority of profits. Alphabet said in a subsequent blog post that search queries continue to rise, including those coming from Apple users.