OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, has been hard at work developing a web search tool that could potentially give Google’s web search a solid run for its advertising revenue. An achievement that has long eluded its backer and tech arch-rival Microsoft Corporation.
Developing Competition: According to a source cited by The Information, OpenAI is venturing into the dense jungle of web search, with backing from Bing, in an attempt to engage in direct combat with Google.
While it remains uncertain whether this tool will function as a standalone innovation or become absorbed into ChatGPT, reported The Verge.
This development comes a year following Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s strategic move, leveraging OpenAI’s Copilot AI tools to spice up Bing’s offering and take a shot at Google’s dominance.
“I have a lot of respect for Sundar and his team so therefore I just want us to innovate right,” Nadella said at the time.
Adding, “Today was a day where we brought some more competition to search. We’ve been at it, believe me, I’ve been at it for 20 years. I’ve been waiting for it. But look at the end of the day they’re the 800-pound gorilla on this, and I hope that with our innovation they will definitely want to come out and show that they can dance.”
“I want people to know that we made them dance and I think that’ll be a great day,” he stated.
Microsoft first invested $1 billion into OpenAI in 2019 and again in 2021. The tech giant added $10 billion to the investment tally last year. However, OpenAI’s search tool and Bing Copilot may end up competing with each other due to their overlapping functionalities and target audiences.
According to German database company Statista, as of July 2023, Bing holds approximately 10.51% of the global desktop search market, while Google, holds a whopping 81.95%. Meanwhile, Yahoo accounted for 2.67% of the market share.
Legacy of Rivalry: Microsoft Bing and Alphabet’s Google Search have a longstanding rivalry.
In April last year, it was reported that Google employees were in a state of “panic” upon learning that Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd was contemplating substituting Google Search with Microsoft’s Bing AI as the primary search engine on its devices. However, Samsung later decided to continue its deal with Google.
Despite the integration of AI, Bing’s share of the global search market has only seen a slight increase to 3.4%. This is despite the incorporation of OpenAI’s generative AI technology. Google continues to retain a dominant market position, with over 90% of the share and is also the default search engine on Apple devices.
Aside from Google, Bing, and Yahoo, newer players have also entered the field to challenge the dominance of the existing search engines. AI search engine startup, Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas expressed confidence in its product’s generative AI search capabilities to rival giants like Google Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Last month, The Browser Company launched an iOS app, Arc Search, that combines a browser, search engine, and AI to give users a unique search experience.
OpenAI’s plunge into web search underscores the fierce competition underlying the modern tech landscape.
