An Apple Executive suggested that AI Chatbots were eroding the Google’s search business, sending the alphabetical actions that were upset. The truth is more complicated.

Apple Executive Eddy Cue blocked alphabet actions Earlier this week, when, testifying during the case of the United States against the alphabet, he said that the volume of Google The search for the Apple Safari web browser had declined for the first time in more than two decades. Cue attributed that it decreases volume to people using new AI tools to find information.

Bombshell’s comments decreased the price of Alphabet’s shares by up to 9% in the IntraDay negotiation, although some of these losses later retreated and are currently about 6% lower than before CUE’s testimony.

Investors have been concerned that AI’s Chatbots would move Google Search, which represents 55% of general alphabet revenue, and are also believed to have a much greater percentage of the company’s benefits. (We do not know exactly how much, because Alphabet does not emphasize its benefits for the same segments for which it reports income.) But trying to make fun exactly how IA’s competition affects Google and what rivals they can gain by Google, it is complicated.

There are more things in Apple Google Traffic than Safari only

In response to CUE’s testimony, Google published a statement This, without saying directly, confirmed what Cue had said about Safari, while also implying the investors in the data. “We continue to see the overall growth of search consultation. This includes an increase in total consultations from Apple devices and platforms,” ​​the company said.

That is, people are looking for more, no less, but they do not necessarily use the Apple Safari browser to do it. Google also said that he was seeing more use of new search modes, such as google lens or searches based on voice -based searches. These functions are not compatible with safari, which can mean that people go to Google’s Chrome browser or Google app.

Alphabet has also made several comments on his own growing use of the AI ​​to provide “general AI views”: capsule responses to search queries instead of only a classified list list, and their impact on search. For example, for more than a year the alphabet has insisted that the general views of the AI ​​increase the use of search. Independent data Web and Sparkoro and Datos analytical companies seem to confirm, showing that the total number of Google searches grew more than 20% year after year in 2024, the first full year that existed the general AI views.

Alphabet also filed a statement in March, based on what was the data of the internal companies of January of 2025, that the general views of the AI ​​also gave rise to “commercial searches”, where people sought to buy a particular product or service.

But the Google Sissie Hiaio executive, who oversaw the launch of the Google Gemini Chatbot Gemini product, testified In April in the Google Anti -Trust test, since Chatgpt’s debut, Google had seen a decrease in certain searches around “Mathematics and Duties”. Hiaio said that these searches do not generate much advertising revenue, but also said that Vidhya Srinivasan, the executive responsible for the Google ADS business, believes that AI will eventually cannibalize search revenue.

The overall search volume has increased, insists the alphabet. But Google market share can reduce –.

While the general search volume may increase, Google may take a little less of this larger cake. Data From the web analytics firm, Statcounter has shown a small reduction, but marked in Google Search’s global market share from Openai’s Chatgpt’s debut at the end of November 2022. The Google share has grown from 93% of traditional search engines traffic to less than 90% in this period. The fall of Google below 90%, which occurred in the last quarter of 2024, is the first time the company has been reduced below this threshold since 2015.

Statcounter figures do not directly evaluate the traffic volumes of traditional search engines in the use of AI tools like Chatgpt. That said, he could say that during the same period, Microsoft’s Bing, which incorporates the company’s bing Chatbot and is driven by Openai’s GPT models, has seen a small rise in market share, from 3% to 3.9%, according to Statcounter.

Data Released earlier this week of Similarweb, another website tracking company, also shows a 2% decrease in market share for year -on -year Google. And Silivewb’s data show that all traditional search engines that lose traffic for the last 12 months, a probable indication that people will be more targeted at AI tools for answers. (Still, Sparkoro and Datos figures indicate that Chatgpt saw only about 1% of the total traffic volume seen by Google Search in 2024.)

Silikeweb’s latest data say that these new AI tools, Chatgpt has the largest market share, with approximately 80%of the total use of the Chatbot, while the Deepseeek AI Chatbot has 6.5%, Google AI tools have 5.6%, X.com2.6%and perplexity and perplexity approximately 1.5%.

Younger people are also seeking more and more social products recommendations for products, travel and restaurants, instead of using Google. A report by Bernstein Research in September 2024 cited two separate surveys to find that about half of z gene consumers could use platforms such as tiktok or Instagram Instead of Google as a main search tool.

Income has increased, but growth rates slow down

The speed with which these Google income trends can be generated is unclear. In the first quarter, Google search revenue grew by 7%, which was about half the rate with which this revenue expanded by 2024. But they still grow.

Philipp Schindler, Senior Vice President and Business Director of Alphabet, told the investors about the company’s first quarter earnings call last month that Alphabet has seen “monetization at approximately the same pace” from the launch of AI general views. But he also refused to answer questions about click rates, as the introduction of AI capsule answers. And the following morning, the presentation of 10q seconds from Alphabet revealed that the growth of its Google payment clicks and others “had been reduced to 2%, to the growth rate of 5% during 2024.

JPMORGAN analyst Doug Anmuth in a blood testimony to Cue’s testimony, said that “we believe that AI general views are a slower click growth, as they probably have a lower load of ads and more relevant natural search results.” Two recent studies of marketing companies that help companies increase their presence in search engine results have indicated large falls in click rhythms, up to 35%, for general AI views compared to traditional search.

According to the testimony of Hiao’s antimonopoly judgment, Google AD, Srinivasan, promoted the inclusion of ads in Gemini Ai’s Chatbot answers as soon as possible to compensate for the eventual cannibalization of the Ai generative tools of Google Search, the company’s life profit engine. “Writing is on the wall,” Srinavasan said at a meeting of October 2024 according to the notes of this meeting introduced to the trial.

The alphabet is not in immediate danger. Remains far and moves away the dominant player in search and has a diversified income base, with YouTube And his cloud business, to support it too. The search giant still has time to find out how to escape Dilemma of the innovative—But the testimony of Cue is a reminder that the clock is marking.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com