Google's monopoly is under attack. ChatGPT declares war

Two multibillion-dollar companies are ready to compete with each other. Will Bing be able to push Google aside and what changes in the usual Internet search will this competition bring?

The excitement caused by ChatGPT, a chatbot with artificial intelligence, is growing. Microsoft has decided to integrate its successful language model, developed by OpenAI, with its search engine, Bing.

The new search engine, unlike conventional search, responds to user queries with an open response rather than a standard list of sites. This made the market ambassador, Google Corporation, nervous.

Google announced a "code red" mobilization of all teams to work on the ChatGPT response. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin even joined the effort. In addition, they have not actively participated in the company for three years.

Google has announced more than 20 products based on artificial intelligence.

All this proves that in the world of technology a period of competitive war between corporations, which are sharks of business, begins. It is clear that Google is not going to lose its monopoly as an Internet search engine.

ChatGPT and its super-popularity

In 2022, the American technology company OpenAI presented ChatGPT chat-bot, which runs on artificial intelligence language model (AI) GPT3.5. As the creators assure, this algorithm can perform almost any task.

Immediately after its presentation, the chatbot became super-popular. His success can be explained by the ability to give answers as close as possible to human language and a full contextual understanding of his interlocutor.

Such capabilities he gained through the Language Learning Model (LLM), which in turn gained knowledge on a huge amount of data.

Reddit (a site combining a social network and a forum) and Twitter became platforms for learning a huge amount of data. It was there, where the artificial intelligence was able to analyze all the publications made by users, and based on this information, formed responses as close to human language as possible.

The popularity of ChatGPT is growing very fast. Already in January of this year chatbot has gained over 100 million active users. It's the most astounding popularity story since the birth of the internet.

Collaboration with Microsoft

This year it was reported that Microsoft is considering an investment in OpenAI. In terms of details and figures, there is no comment from the parties, but Bloomberg reports the amount of $10 billion, while the capitalization of OpenAI is collectively $ 29 billion.

It is known that this is not the first time Microsoft has invested in a developer. In 2019, the corporation, the world's largest software producer, had already invested $1 billion in OpenAI. This guaranteed it priority rights to commercialize the artificial intelligence technology.

The cooperation with OpenAI and Microsoft has, above all, strategic prospects for the latter. By integrating ChatGPT and Dall-E (image-creating artificial intelligence) into its search engine Bing, the company hopes to end Google's monopoly.

Back in 2020, Microsoft obtained exclusive access to the GPT-3 algorithm.

In 2023, the publication Information, citing sources within Microsoft, it was reported about the intention in the spring to release an updated version of its search engine Bing using the algorithm ChatGPT. The expectation is that the updated search engine will challenge Google.

Google panics

The super-popularity of ChatGPT and information about its integration with Bing forced Google to mobilize and begin preparing for a powerful confrontation.

The corporation's CEO, Sundar Pichai, announced a "code red" for employees working on LaMDA

LaMDA - Language Model for Dialogue Applications - is a family of conversational neural language models introduced by Google in 2021. It was the LaMDA team that Pichai set out to give a decent answer to ChatGPT.

Work began on a neural network that can produce illustrations and images similar to Dall-E, which is used by more than 3 million people.

Increased competition even prompted Microsoft founder Bill Gates to return to the company. Henceforth, the 67-year-old billionaire spends 10% of his time in a team meeting to develop a product related to artificial intelligence.

In early February, Google announced its chatbot Bard and promised that it would become available to users in the coming weeks.

Like ChatGPT, Bard is built on LaMDA's LLM, which makes its capabilities close to OpenAI's neural network. Google also plans to integrate LaMDA with its search engine. According to Engadget, the company is testing a new search ribbon that uses response formats generated by artificial intelligence.

At a human query, the bot gives a detailed answer in the form of gray bubbles, under which there are additional questions to adjust the search result.

The competition between Google and Microsoft is going public. Each side is trying to be the first to present its products and repeat the media success of ChatGPT.

Trap for Google

The year 2023 was not off to a good start for Google. In January, Pichai reported laying off 12,000 employees as the company's revenue declined in 2022.

Its revenue structure is structured so that most of its profits come from search advertising. For the third quarter of 2022, Google's revenue was $69.1 billion, of which $39.5 billion, or 57.2%, came from search advertising.

Google's search engine is now the leader in the world. According to Statcounter, 91.88% of users choose it. In second place is Microsoft's Bing with 3.19%.

This puts Google in a tough spot. Implementing artificial intelligence for its search engine and actively using it could have a negative impact on the company's profits.

If Bing from ChatGPT proves to be more successful and starts poaching users, Google's leadership will be shaken.

Also, the introduction of AI would rid Google of a significant portion of its advertising revenue through the classic search engine. The company must solve the difficult task of keeping users and finding advertising tools for the new technology.

Is Bing contributing to Google

Before the presentation of products from both companies, it is difficult to predict their success or failure.

The media popularity of ChatGPT led many to believe that the capabilities of chatbot from OpenAI will change the usual search for information through Google. However, the latter has been actively funding LaMDA for years and clearly has a "trump card" up its sleeve.

The popularity of ChatGPT has also shown that the chatbot is often wrong. OpenAI Executive Director Sam Altman has repeatedly said that the technology is severely limited and can produce erroneous statements.

The chatbot also does not always accurately cite sources that are basic when searching for information. In addition, it is not able to rank sites for reliability, quality or trustworthiness.

A prime example of ChatGPT's illogic was when it was asked for the name of Twitter's CEO and answered that it was Ilon Musk.

That's the correct answer, but ChatGPT couldn't have known it because he was studying data until 2021. Therefore, all the relevant information for him is unknown, including Twitter's purchase by Musk in October 2022.

Such facts undermine the credibility of the AI's ability to respond correctly to user requests. In addition, it is unknown how Microsoft plans to integrate it with Bing.

Obviously, Google overslept the start of this race and is now actively trying to catch up with the competitor. The fact that OpenAI began to attract investment clearly illustrates the situation in the field of AI development among technological giants.

The future confrontation between Google and Microsoft is reminiscent of the story of the emergence of the business application Slack. Its popularity also grew rapidly, but Microsoft seized the initiative and took away most of its users.

Will Internet search change

Changes are already happening, and not just because of ChatGPT. According to

According to Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president of Google, a significant portion of young people go to TikTok or Instagram instead of Google Maps or Google Search when looking for a place to eat.

The classic ways of getting information by browsing sites are becoming a thing of the past. Raghavan notes that young people prefer visual content.

The introduction of AI by Google and Microsoft into their search engines is unlikely to change the market quickly, because neural networks have a long way to go to adapt and optimize.

Google and Microsoft are not companies that depend solely on Internet search engines. They are large ecosystems that integrate dozens of applications. With their help, humanity learns, works, leads teams, and plans life.

So the most likely scenario for both companies would be a gradual integration of neural networks with their products, which would significantly improve human productivity. Continued to follow.