Competition between Google and Microsoft in search

I’ve got doubts about competition between Google and Microsoft on artificial intelligence. Setting aside my doubts about competition as a universal economic virtue – after all, one can win by cheating – I fear it will lead to the premature release of products, as it already has in the case of Google’s Bard. On the other hand, competition in the search space, that’s different. Google has had it too easy for too long.

The problem, of course, is that competition in search is intimately bound up with competition in AI. I fear we’re in for a bumpy ride.

The NYTimes has an article about competition in search: Google Devising Radical Search Changes to Beat Back A.I. Rivals, by Nico Grant, April 16, 2023. The article opens with Google in a panic over the possibility that “Samsung was considering replacing Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on its devices.” Apple has a similar contract that ends this year.

A.I. competitors like the new Bing are quickly becoming the most serious threat to Google’s search business in 25 years, and in response, Google is racing to build an all-new search engine powered by the technology. It is also upgrading the existing one with A.I. features, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times.

The new features, under the project name Magi, are being created by designers, engineers and executives working in so-called sprint rooms to tweak and test the latest versions. The new search engine would offer users a far more personalized experience than the company’s current service, attempting to anticipate users’ needs.

Lara Levin, a Google spokeswoman, said in a statement that “not every brainstorm deck or product idea leads to a launch, but as we’ve said before, we’re excited about bringing new A.I.-powered features to search, and will share more details soon.”

Billions of people use Google’s search engine every day for everything from finding restaurants and directions to understanding a medical diagnosis, and that simple white page with the company logo and an empty bar in the middle is one of the most widely used web pages in the world. Changes to it would have a significant impact on the lives of ordinary people, and until recently it was hard to imagine anything challenging it.

There’s much more in the article.