Google employees were stunned to learn in March that Samsung was considering replacing Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on its devices.
For years, Bing had been a neglected search engine, but it became much more interesting to industry insiders when it recently added new artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Google’s reaction to the threat in Samsung was “panic”, reveal internal messages analyzed by The New York Times. There is an estimated $3 billion in annual revenue at stake.
AI competitors like the new Bing are fast becoming the most serious threat to Google’s search unit in 25 years, and in response, Google is rushing to develop an entirely new search engine powered by this technology. It is also modernizing the existing search engine with AI features, according to internal documents analyzed by The Times. The new features are developed under the Magi project name.
Google has been concerned about AI-powered competitors ever since OpenAI, a San Francisco startup working with Microsoft, demonstrated a chatbot called ChatGPT in November. About two weeks later, Google created a working group in its search division to begin developing AI products, two people familiar with the efforts said.
Modernizing its search engine has become an obsession at Google, and the planned changes could bring new AI technology to phones and homes around the world.
The threat at Samsung represented the first potential crack in Google’s seemingly invulnerable search unit, which was worth $162 billion last year.
In recent years, Google has used large language models to improve its search results, but has refrained from fully embracing AI as it has been prone to misleading and misleading statements. In March, Google launched Bard, its own chatbot, but the technology has received mixed reviews.
Plans for the new search engine are in the early stages, with no clear timeline for its launch.
The system would learn what users want to know based on what they are looking for when they start using it. In addition, it would offer pre-selected option lists of items to purchase, data to research, and other information. It would also be more conversational.
However, long before the search engine can be rebuilt, the Magi project will add functionality to the existing search engine. Google is expected to release the tools to the public this month and add more in the fall, a planning document said.
Initially, the company plans to roll out the features to a maximum of one million people, gradually increasing to 30 million by the end of the year. The features will be available only in the US.
Google has also considered allowing people to use Google Earth mapping technology with the help of AI and search for music by having a conversation with a chatbot, a Google director wrote in a document.
Other ideas are in various stages of development.
Jim Lecinski, a former vice president at Google, said the company has to convince users that it is just as “powerful, competent and contemporary” as its competitors.
“If we are the top search engine and this is a new attribute, a new function and a new feature of search engines, we want to make sure that we compete in this race as well,” said Lecinski, a marketing professor at Northwestern University. in Illinois.
By: NICO GRANT
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6693978, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-05-02 22:50:09
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