What you need to know
- Google was recently ruled as a monopolist in an antitrust court ruling.
- Experts say the rapid adoption of AI is revolutionizing how users interact with the internet and search.
- AI tools like OpenAI's SearchGPT should be a top concern for Google, instead of the antitrust ruling placing it as an illegal monopoly in search alongside the pending regulation by US watchdogs.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” indicated Judge Amit Mehta in his 277-page judgment ruling on Google's dominance in the search landscape. While the tech giant awaits its fate and new direction as a business from US antitrust watchdogs, a new report by Reuters suggests it has bigger fish to fry.
As you may know, OpenAI recently ventured into the search landscape with a temporary prototype dubbed SearchGPT designed to help users find quick responses and answers to queries in a conversational tone. While its access is limited to a few unnamed partners and publishers, OpenAI will use the feedback to improve the tool's efficiency and possibly ship it to broad availability soon.
AI could give Google a run for its money
With the emergence of generative AI and AI-powered tools like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT, people are starting to interact with the web differently. Expert analysts and investors in the sector say OpenAI's SearchGPT is already having a similar effect and impacting Google's user base.
While speaking to Reuters, former Google Engineer Arvind Jain indicated:
"I think for Google right now, AI (is) a much bigger deal than the ruling. AI is fundamentally changing how the search product also works."
Jain added that while Google might have been ruled as a monopolist, its impact on the market might be stunted by appeals. The former engineer says AI poses a greater threat to Google's dominance in search.
Other competitors in the search space have previously called out Google for its anti-competitive business practices designed to assert its dominance in the category. Microsoft isn't exactly speck-free. Earlier this year, Mozilla placed the Redmond giant on the spot for using harmful designs and deceptive tactics to give Edge a competitive advantage over other browsers in Windows.
Ironically, Google recently flagged Microsoft using its Bing Wallpaper app to get users to switch to "recommended browser settings" — Microsoft Edge and Bing. Bing has slowly gained traction thanks to Microsoft's aggressive AI campaign across its products and services, pushing it to 140 million daily active users in April.
Though the details remain slim at best, we know Google's dominance in search doesn't come cheap. It reportedly paid Apple $26 billion to maintain its search engine as the default across its devices.
Interestingly, the iPhone maker admits there's no alternative search engine it could transition to, while citing Bing's search quality issues. Apple says 'there's no price Microsoft could pay' to make it ditch Google. At some point, Microsoft offered Bing to Apple for free, but the company still declined.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella indicated that Google doesn't play fair with Bing. Nadella indicated Microsoft was willing to part with $15 billion annually to attract a similar deal with Apple. It would be "a game-changing opportunity" the CEO concluded.
OpenAI and Microsoft stack miles ahead of Google in AI advances. Interestingly, AI models are reliant on Google for training. As you may know, Google hopped onto the AI bandwagon a tad later than its competitors, and it hasn't been smooth sailing either. Its recent AI Overviews feature failure placed Google in a bad light, but the company quickly fixed the issue, shifting the blame to a data-void and fabricated screenshots.
The younger generation is reportedly more drawn to "modern research" tools like ChatGPT. This is highlighted in ChatGPT's fast-growing revenue and downloads on mobile.
While AI seems highly promising as a research tool that could potentially give Google a run for its money, it's still riddled with critical issues, including misinformation and overdependence on Google for training.
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