Last year, a former Google engineer indicated that the company might have bigger fish to fry with the emergence of AI-powered search engines beyond the antitrust ruling that deemed it an illegal monopoly in search.
Experts suggest that OpenAI's ChatGPT search and its "temporary prototype" search tool, SearchGPT, are revolutionizing how users interact with the internet and search. Even the ChatGPT maker's CEO, Sam Altman, claimed that he doesn't "do Google searches anymore" while touting ChatGPT search as an oracular system.
More recently, while testifying before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee during a hearing on American AI competitiveness, Ted Cruz, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, asked Sam Altman:
“Will ChatGPT replace Google as the primary search engine, and if so, when?”
This was after Google revealed that its search traffic on Safari had declined for the first time in Google. “They didn’t send me a Christmas card,” Sam Altman jokingly interjected (via GeekWire).
"Probably not," added Altman. While the executive indicated that ChatGPT is a better alternative for some use cases, he admitted that the AI-powered chatbot won't replace Google as the primary search engine.
Altman referred to Google as a “ferocious competitor” with "a very strong AI team, a lot of infrastructure, a very well-protected business, and they’re making great progress putting AI into their search.”
This news comes after OpenAI shipped ChatGPT search to everyone for free. Unlike when it first launched, the search tool is no longer behind the AI firm's $20 monthly paywall. Moreover, you won't require an account to access the feature.
Elsewhere, You.com CEO Richard Socher indicated that Google's dominance in search might soon end as users embrace and adopt AI-powered alternatives like ChatGPT search and You.com.
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