ChatGPT is a revolutionary AI-based chat engine that is threatening Google. So powerful is this program that some investors are anticipating it will topple the current search leader, Google. But what is ChatGPT and will Google survive the onslaught?
Google playing catchup to ChatGPT
This week was a dismal one for Google (NAS:GOOG). In just just two sessions, $150 billions were erased from its market capitalisation. The reason? ChatGPT – the newest Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) program that have taken the world by storm.
ChatGPT is an AI powered program that is dialogue-based. OpenAi (openai.com), the developer of ChatGPT, shows us how it developed the chat engine.
According to some metrics, ChatGPT is on course to be fastest growing app in the world. Its interactive capability, while still not perfect, is close to become a fully functional search engine unencumbered by commercial adverts. It can tackle far-ranging topics, write and formulate essays that can pass examinations, and even score well enough in technical interviews to progress to the interview stage.
Some universities are banning the usage of ChatGPT because assessors can no longer differentiate between ChatGPT-derived answers to the actual ones. That’s how good that the program is.
Source: Openai.com
What’s ChatGPT got to do with Google?
Google is a search engine. It provides useful answers to user queries – albeit with a commercial angle. And for the past two decades, it has cornered the global search. Google’s monopolistic search business underpins its $1 trillion market valuation.
But all this threatened by ChatGPT. Microsoft opened its chequebook and invested $10 billion in OpenAI. It has already started to incorporate ChatGPT into its own search engine – Bing (bing.com). Baidu (NAS:BIDU) in China is also doing the same. That in itself may do Google no harm.
However in a recent demonstration of Bard – Google’s version of ChatGPT – it has shown that Google’s product is an inferior version to ChatGPT. Now that got investors worried.
If users started to switch to ChatGPT, it will reduce Google’s search dominance. In turn, this will hit Google’s ad-business. There will be some damage to Google’s bottom line in the future if Google failed to better its own AI chat bot and loses the race.
That’s the market logic – and hence the immediate drop in Google’s share price.
Will Google survive in the next AI race?
Make no mistake, there is fierce race in the next-generation AI chatbot. Google and Microsoft are two titans leading this race. The stake can not be higher. As in most tech races: The winner takes all. The company that wins the race will dominate the global market for a time
But is Google destined to lose the race? Not necessarily. It has vast resources to throw at this problem. Yes, the emergence of ChatGPT caught it by surprise. In time, it should be able to reduce this gap. It is not a certainty that ChatGPT will dethrone Google. Perhaps both will co-exist for a while as both companies serve different markets.
