May 9 2025 – In a significant development during the ongoing U.S. Department of Justice antitrust trial against Google, Apple’s senior vice president, Eddy Cue, testified that there has been a noticeable decline in the number of Google searches conducted through Safari browsers over the past two months. Cue, who highlighted the unprecedented nature of this shift, suggested that the trend could be attributed to the growing adoption of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity by users.
The revelation sent shockwaves through the stock market, with Alphabet, Google’s parent company, experiencing a sharp decline of over 7% in its share price on the same day, erasing approximately 250billionfromitsmarketvaluation.Apple′sstockalsotookahit,closingdownmorethan120 billion.
For Google, these remarks come at a particularly challenging time. The company has already faced two consecutive federal antitrust losses in the past nine months, raising the specter of a potential breakup. The core of the litigation centers on Google’s dominance in the search engine market, a position that even formidable competitors like Microsoft have struggled to challenge effectively. According to Statcounter, Google maintained an 89.7% market share globally last month, with Microsoft’s Bing trailing far behind at 3.9%.
Even without regulatory pressures, Google’s grip on the market appears to be weakening. Since the emergence of ChatGPT in late 2022, Google’s market share has slipped from 93% to nearly 90%. While the change may seem marginal, the fact that it has failed to regain the 90% threshold in the past six months—a scenario unseen in the last decade—is cause for concern. OpenAI data indicates that ChatGPT now boasts 400 million weekly active users, further underscoring the growing influence of generative AI.
Despite its continued dominance in search advertising and other lucrative sectors, Google’s position is no longer as unassailable as it once was. MoffettNathanson analysts argue that most queries directed to AI chatbots lack significant commercial value, suggesting that the shift towards these platforms may not immediately threaten Google’s core revenue streams. However, the market’s perception of Alphabet’s profitability appears to be shifting. FactSet data reveals that Alphabet’s stock has declined by nearly 12% over the past year, with its forward price-to-earnings ratio dipping below 16 times this week for the first time in 12 years, a clear sign of investor caution.
