Apple is now using Google to power Siri search — ditching Microsoft (AAPL, MSFT, GOOG, GOOGL)

apple siri the rock

Apple announced on Monday that it was switching several of Siri's search features to Google Search instead of using Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Now, when you ask Apple's voice assistant to search the web, it will return Google results. Siri searches on Monday showed a button to get additional results from Google.

“Switching to Google as the web search provider for Siri, Search within iOS and Spotlight on Mac will allow these services to have a consistent web search experience with the default in Safari,” an Apple representative told TechCrunch in a statement.

The transition away from Microsoft's search engine, which previously provided services to Siri, isn't total — image results will still be provided by Bing.

It's not clear what this change means for the agreements between Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Google pays Apple to be the default search engine on Apple's Safari browser on iOS and Mac desktops — as much as $3 billion per year, analysts have estimated. Google revealed a $1 billion payment to Apple in 2014 in court.

Bing became the default search engine for Siri in 2013 with the launch of iOS 7.

"Making sure customers can have access to the power of Bing where and when they need it has been a big focus of the work we have done over the past few years, and we are excited to work with Apple to deliver it to Siri users this fall," Microsoft said at the time in a blog post.

Join the conversation about this story »