Google Devises Fundamental Search Changes to Beat AI Rivals

Google employees were shocked to learn in March that South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung was considering replacing Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on its devices.

For years, Bing was also a search engine. However, the recent addition of new artificial intelligence techniques has made it even more interesting for industry insiders.

Google’s response to the Samsung threat was “panic,” according to an internal message seen by The New York Times. An estimated $3 billion in annual revenue was at stake in the deal with Samsung. His $20 billion extra is tied to a similar his Apple contract that will be renewed this year.

AI competitors like the new Bing are fast becoming the most serious threat to Google’s search business in 25 years, and in response, Google has rushed to build an entirely new search engine powered by this technology. I’m in. It is also upgrading existing ones with AI capabilities, according to internal documents seen by The Times.

New features are created by designers, engineers, and executives fine-tuning and testing the latest version in what we call a sprint room under the project name Magi. The new search engine will try to anticipate user needs and provide users with a much more personalized experience than the company’s current offering.

Google spokesperson Lara Levin said in a statement: Details coming soon.”

Billions of people use Google’s search engine every day for everything from finding restaurants and directions to understanding medical diagnoses. A simple white page with a company logo and an empty bar in the middle is his one of the most widely used web pages in the world. Changing it would have such a huge impact on the lives of ordinary people that until recently nothing could have been imagined to challenge it.

Google has been concerned about AI-powered competitors since OpenAI, a San Francisco startup working with Microsoft, demoed a chatbot called ChatGPT in November. About two weeks later, Google set up a task force in its search division to start building his AI product, said two people familiar with the effort.

Search engine modernization has become a Google obsession. Planned changes could bring new AI technology to phones and homes around the world.

The Samsung threat represents the first potential crack in Google’s seemingly impregnable search business, which was worth $162 billion last year. Over the last 12 years, it wasn’t clear if Microsoft’s work on AI was the main reason Samsung was considering a change, but that was an internal Google assumption. A deal is being negotiated and Samsung may stick with Google.

But the idea that Samsung, which makes hundreds of millions of smartphones with Google’s Android software every year, is considering switching search engines has shocked Google employees.

Some employees reacted with emojis and surprise after being told the company was looking for volunteers to put together materials for a pitch to Samsung this month. “Wow, OK, that’s wild,” she replied one.

A Google spokesperson said the search engine is continually improving to give users and partners more reasons to choose Google, and Android smartphone makers are liberalizing technologies from various companies to improve the user experience. I said I could hire you.

Samsung and Microsoft declined to comment.

Google has been doing AI research for years. The company’s DeepMind lab in London is considered one of the best AI research centers in the world and is a pioneer in AI projects such as self-driving cars and the so-called large language models used to develop cars. is. chatbot. In recent years, Google has used large-scale language models to improve the quality of search results, but has postponed the full adoption of AI because AI is prone to generating false and biased statements.

The priority now is to dominate the next big thing in the industry. Last month, Google released its own chatbot, Bard, to mixed reviews for the technology.

Plans for a new search engine demonstrating Google’s ambition to reimagine the search experience are still in the early stages, with no clear timetable for when the new search technology will be released.

The system learns what you want to know based on what you search for when you start using it. It also provides a list of pre-selected options for objects to purchase, information to research, and other information. It also makes it more conversational — a bit like chatting with a friendly person.

However, according to internal documents, the Magi project plans to add functionality to the existing search engine long before the search engine is rebuilt. At Google, he has more than 160 people working full-time, said a person familiar with the work.

Magi keeps ads in the mix of search results. For example, search queries that could lead to financial transactions, such as buying shoes or booking a flight, will still show ads on the search results page.

This is important for Google, as search advertising is their primary source of revenue. His Bard, the company’s chatbot, does not display ads, and there was speculation in the tech industry that his AI answers in search engines could make ads less relevant to users. .

With the planned addition of search capabilities, it will also be possible to answer software coding questions and write code based on user requests. According to the documentation, Google may display ads below computer code answers.

Last week, Google invited several employees to test Magi’s features and encouraged them to ask search engines follow-up questions to determine their ability to conduct conversations. Google plans to roll out the tool to the general public next month and add more features in the fall, according to a planning document.

The company initially plans to release this feature to up to 1 million people. That number should rise gradually to he 30 million by the end of the year. These features are available in the US only.

Google is also exploring efforts to let people use Google Earth’s mapping technology with the help of AI to find music through conversations with chatbots, Google’s directors wrote in a statement. increase.

Other product ideas are in various stages of development. A tool called GIFI uses AI to generate images in Google Image search results. Another tool, Tivoli Tutor, teaches users new languages ​​through AI free text conversations.

Yet another product, Searchalong, allows users to ask questions to a chatbot while surfing the web in Google’s Chrome browser. For example, when people ask a chatbot about activities near his Airbnb rental, the AI ​​scans that page and the rest of the internet for a response.

Jim Leschinski, Google’s former vice president of sales and services, said the company must act and convince users that it is as “strong, capable and modern” as its competitors. rice field.

“If we are a major search engine and this is new attributes, new features and new features of search engines, we want to make sure we are in this race too,” said a marketing executive. Leschinski, a professor, said: He said in an interview at Northwestern University.

Daisuke Wakabayashi, Karen Weise and Trip Mickle contributed to the report.