Search: Google is in danger of being overtaken by Microsoft

Google’s core business is search. proud $162 billion brought the Google search business to the Alphabet group last year. But this is now in distress and Google is in danger of losing its importance in the search engine market. The reason for this: “Google never thought about how they could integrate artificial intelligence into their search and now they are in danger of Microsoft outperforming them,” says Clemens Wasnerchairman of the association AI Austriain conversation with futurezone.

According to a report by the “New York TimesSamsung is considering switching to the Bing-Search from Microsoft to put. The has with the “KI-Co-Piloten“ has already integrated artificial intelligence via the chatbot ChatGPT.

Appropriate for the masses

ChatGPT has from its launch in November 2022 immediately caused a sensation. Already 18 percent of Austrians have tried the chatbot. The AI ​​chatbot has been given a user interface that is so simple and accessible that anyone can try AI. The threshold was set even lower via the integration into the Bing search. It is enough to create a Microsoft account. The AI ​​feature in Microsoft Search makes it easy to ask questions. These can be questions about a menu suggestion for dinner with selected ingredients, or for handicraft ideas for the child’s afternoon activity.

The $3 billion deal between Google and Samsung is now at stake, says the report. Samsung and Microsoft declined to comment for now. But the mere prospect of Google losing its dominance in its core discipline shocks those who work for Google. There is panic.

Google has clearly dominated the search engine market so far. Around 85.53 percent of desktop searches were conducted with Google in March. Bing followed 8.23 percent on second place. Google didn’t have one until December 120-strong team launched that should exclusively deal with the integration of new functions from the field of artificial intelligence in the search. In the Google I/O in May it is expected that Google will present the first results.

market perception

With DeepMind Google has been researching AI for more than 4 years. With Bard, a ChatGPT competitor was also recently introduced. But are these advances really enough to maintain dominance in the search engine market? “For market perception, it is of course a problem that Microsoft has already successfully integrated AI. I’m also afraid that half a year will not be enough time to show more than a few demonstrations in May. The AI ​​integration into the search will take much longer,” says the expert from AI Austria.

However, Wasner believes that Google generally has a very good chance of staying ahead in searches. This is mainly due to the fact that he considers the competition’s search engine to be “bad”. “Bing search doesn’t work very well per se. Therefore, if Samsung were to really embrace Bing search, it would be a disaster for Samsung because people would rightly say that the search function is useless,” explains Wasner.

Innovations are missing

“Google doesn’t have a great culture of innovation,” says Wasner. “For 10 years, no really new product has been able to establish itself.” So that would argue against Google taking the helm in AI. Nevertheless, Google has some ideas on how to integrate AI into the search that also make Wasner sit up and take notice: an AI tool called GIFI for the image search, as Google is planning for the future, can be easily implemented, he is convinced. Google has announced further AI developments for the search: That’s the way it is Tivoli Tutor planned, which helps you to learn a new language while searching. With Searchalong should people be able to ask questions directly in the Chrome browser. Google is just as “powerful, competent and up to date” as the competition, says Jim Lecinski, a former manager of the search engine group’s services division.