The arrival of ChatGPT has meant a real revolution in the technological world from the moment its latest version was released at the end of November of last year. Its ability to offer human-like answers to any question has made it the fastest growing application in the history of the Internet, reaching more than 590 million visits and up to 100 million unique users in just two months. By comparison, it took TikTok about nine months to reach this number of users, and Instagram over two years.
This unprecedented success has encouraged Microsoft to invest $10 billion in OpenAI. At the same time, it is trying to rehabilitate Bing, including ChatGPT’s Generative Artificial Intelligence capabilities in its search engine. Microsoft has a lot to gain, in a sector where Google controls 93% of the market, compared to Bing’s 3%, and in which increasing just 1 point of market share in search advertising would mean increasing its revenue by more than 2 billion annually.
But what is Generative Artificial Intelligence and what new features can it bring to current search engines? Generative AI is a form of machine learning capable of creating unique and new content, being capable of producing and generating text, images, voice, code, and even videos.
But let’s take a practical example, let’s imagine that a user is looking for a new vehicle and wants information to choose between different types of motorization (combustion, electric, hybrid or plug-in hybrid). In a traditional search model, he would request recommendations or information using keywords or keywords, and the search engine would recommend websites with relevant information.
However, using ChatGPT, the user can write in natural language what they are looking for, and ask the system to provide a comparison of the purchase price ranges, as well as the annual maintenance of the vehicle. To later ask you to refine your answer taking into account additional information, such as the cost of installing the charging point, the daily distance you will travel, even an estimate of the price increases for each type of fuel. And conclude by requesting the final result of the estimated cost of each vehicle in table format for one, three or five years. Obtaining a unique and personalized result, as if it were an advisor.
Google’s response has not been long in coming, and on February 6 the company presented its own conversational chatbot, called Bard, which will allow users to ask open-ended questions and receive answers directly from the search results page. However, in his presentation he gave the wrong answer to one of the proposed questions about NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Something that meant a significant drop in Alphabet shares that reached 9%. Something that shows the significant sensitivity of the market, and the risk of loss of credibility involved in publishing these systems in their still Beta versions.
However, it is highly unlikely that the use of Bing powered by Generative AI could take Google’s market share as the dominant search engine in the next few years, as it has significant advantages over Microsoft. Its Chrome web browser, which uses Google as its default search engine, controls 65% of the global browser market, compared to 4.5% for Microsoft’s Edge. In addition, Google’s Android operating system controls 71% of the global smartphone market. And Google’s Chrome comes installed on the vast majority of those devices.
Once both platforms are available, long-term user preference will come down to user experience. In other words, which tool is easier to use and which one is capable of responding more truthfully to user demands.
Traditional search systems provide us with a list of links to Web addresses ordered by their relevance to us, directing user traffic to websites, and charging for this service. However, Generative AI does something different, creating a specific response for the user, after consulting the content of thousands of information sources. It remains to be seen how the search engines will compensate the content creators for the information that their algorithms will feed. Therefore, this new information search model will represent a paradigm shift.
It is at this point where the real threat for Google lies, that this new search paradigm transforms the business model. Google must be careful as, even winning this new race, there is a risk of reducing its current business. In this regard, Microsoft has little to lose, and a lot of market to gain.
* Ángel Galán is Director of the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Area at IMMUNE Technology Institute
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