Microsoft vs. Google
Microsoft announcing the integration of ChatGPT into its search engine Bing, closely followed by Google unveiling its underwhelming AI chatbot Bard, has heralded a new era of competition in internet search after decades of quiet domination and not-much-innovation.
In the case of Google, where you’re so dominant that your company name becomes a verb, it’s easy to see why there’s been little incentive to change things. You don’t get to ~88% US market share (according to StatCounter) without a product that billions of people find useful.
Searching beyond silver
After years of being labeled "a joke" in the tech world, despite still making ~$8.5bn in revenue as we wrote about recently, Bing’s AI-powered revamp is looking like a masterstroke after years of battling for the silver medal in search with Yahoo!. Indeed, last Thursday Bing’s iPhone app had its best ever day of downloads, roughly a 9x increase on previous daily download figures.
The question is whether, for the first time ever, Bing will be able to make inroads into Google’s fortress. If Google’s own AI chatbot, Bard, does turn out to be a flop, Bing’s success will likely hinge on how much value we all place on what you could call “complex searches”. Using an AI-enabled search engine to help “plan an anniversary weekend” in a certain city, with complex search results for accommodation, travel and things to do might be where Bing can win. But if you just need to get to a login page for your emails, find out the Super Bowlscore or look up what time it is in Australia — what you might call “simple searches” — it’s not clear whether you'll need, or want, AI’s help.
