Apple's lucrative partnership with Google is set to end as the tech giant pushes to build its own search tools.

This news follows the investigation of Google by antitrust authorities that threaten to disband the search engine's monopoly of the industry. This development will mean big change for search marketing professionals, whether working for a brand or a Digital Marketing Agency.

Behind the scenes, Apple has already been expanding its search capabilities by increasing the activity of its web crawler, Applebot. Applebot has been overlooked as a web crawler, but the activity suggests the bot is building its information database in order to perform in a general search capacity.

In Apple's latest update of the iPhone operating system, iOS14, experts noticed an increase in the capacity to search the web and link to a website from the home screen. By swiping right on their iPhone home screen, users can see search suggestions - another indicator that Apple is gathering search data.

These changes indicate that Apple is both capable and getting ready to challenge Google. Apple's capability has been confirmed by former engineering chief at Google, Bill Coughran. He has said that Apple "have a credible team that I think has the experience and the depth, if they wanted to, to build a more general search engine". This team of search experts includes former Google Head of Search, John Giannnandrea, as well as other search engineers that have been hired as part of Apple's growth.

One change that the industry expects from Apple's search engine is an increase in user privacy. Apple has previously stated its stand on promoting personal privacy, meaning the storing of personal information and user activity across the web might be scrapped. For advertisers who rely on personal data to target their ads, this could be a significant change. It is unknown whether Apple's search engine will be available to all or just users of Apple products.

This move is a big financial shift for Apple, requiring the capacity to lose the billions of dollars paid by Google to remain the default search engine in safari on all apple products. Apple would also have to finance investment in its server infrastructure so that it can compete. But with a market value of over $2 trillion, Apple is one of the few companies that can afford to compete with Google.

It's yet unknown when Apple will launch their search engine, but the increased activity suggests that Apple want to make progress before the regulators potentially block its lucrative relationship with Google. This development would change not only the experience for the user but could also mean major changes for the digital marketing industry as a whole.