«When the dinosaur woke up there it was…». This is what the creators of Altavista, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Lycos and many other technologies that have tried to stand up to the model developed by Google thought for 25 years. Access to the Internet for almost two decades has been done through a search. Exactly a quarter of a century ago, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of the company, in Silicon Valley, typed two words ‘Gerhard Casper’ and their then fledgling search engine responded with correct links.
Today, every day, 5.6 billion similar searches are executed on Google, where a user can ask from the weather to how to travel to Punta Cana, to give two domestic examples. A revolution in the way we communicate on which millions of businesses, millions of jobs depend, and not only the technology multinational itself, but also other large and not so large companies in the world. An entire economic universe that now trembles before the emergence of generative artificial intelligence.
“ChatGPT is going to end Google in two years.” The forecast is from the former creator of Gmail and now a technology entrepreneur, Paul Buchheit. Because? Because Google has built its success on a network of algorithms that deliver precise links to the 40,000 search queries per second they receive. But now, generative AI searches, processes and responds in real time; “Then it invites you less to browse links,” explains Richard Benjamins, head of artificial intelligence (AI) at Telefónica. In searches alone, Google pocketed 151,682 million euros in 2022, 57% of its income that could be cut by a third, according to financial experts, if this universe of hyperlinks loses importance.
The Internet is entering a new era in which “search engines locate where the content is and match it with what we ask,” describes Senén Barro, professor of Computer Science and AI and scientific director of CiTIUS at the University of Santiago de Compostela. “Now they don’t offer data, but build an answer from enormous amounts of information,” he adds.
A direct hook to a business of 209,593 million euros. That is the figure that Google generated from advertising alone in 2022, almost 400,000 euros per minute and without creating a single content, only offering content from third parties. Between April and June of this year, the firm entered five times the budget of the Ministry of the Interior (10,501 million).
«Generative AI does not look for data, it is capable of constructing a response from a lot of information»
Senen Barro
Professor of Computer Science and AI and scientific director of CiTIUS at the University of Santiago de Compostela
“The traditional model involves browsing the links that the search engine suggests, some of them sponsored,” details Benjamins, an expert in Spanish telecom. Something like “if you pay, you appear”, which is now complicated.
When doing a search, Google technology makes a kind of auction so that the link to a certain website appears as high as possible. There, the search engine giant makes money with sponsored links. A query about ‘hotels in Menorca’ returns 9.6 million results in half a second: a catalog of links in blue to choose accommodation in the indicated destination, but in exchange for more than 7,623 million euros. This is the figure that online travel agencies spent in 2022, to which large departments are added that monitor every algorithm change in Google so as not to lose visibility in a giant that generates more than 21% of internet traffic.
Total disruption
But now the mechanics are different. If a user accesses a generative AI like ChatGPT, they would type: “Give me a guide to spending four days in Rome”; The answer is a detailed plan to tour the eternal city. A clear and concrete answer, almost identical to what a friend would give in an informal conversation. No links, no hyperlinks or visits to other sites on the Internet. Therein lies the great threat to Google’s traditional business.
Goldmine
400,000
euros per minute
Google entered in 2022 thanks to advertising without offering any type of content
Currently, this type of artificial intelligence is based on models called Large Language Models (LLMs) that “are trained with a gigantic amount of text obtained from the Internet,” explains Benjamins. So is Google’s leadership in danger? We asked ChatGPT himself: “The search engine industry is highly competitive, and there is always the possibility that competitors can gain ground,” he answers.
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The OpenAI tool, born less than a year ago, is the best known, but generative AI already appears in Microsoft’s Bing, Brave AI, Jasper or Bard, Google’s response to this new technology that threatens its universe. In silence, and leaving the spotlight to others, the multinational led by Sundar Pichai has worked “on the most complex solution we have ever made.” A change that has incorporated the new features of this technology to which they have added YouTube videos and its famous blue catalog of links.
The competitors have awakened the dinosaur that was still there. Now we just have to see if it is a new multimillion-dollar model that seems ambitious, but tries to grow from humility: “No, I am not prepared to replace Google. Google is a powerful and sophisticated search engine », she answers the tool herself.
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