Google hasn’t faced much competition it couldn’t handle in the past two decades. Mr. Jeeves and Bing didn’t keep Larry Page and Sergey Brin up too many nights, but CEO Sundar Pichai and other top leaders there are flat-out petrified about something breathing down tear necks right now.
The New York Times reported that Google had issued a “code red” over the popularity and success of the AI bot ChatGPT.
Here’s why; many very smart, nonhyperbolic people feel OPenAI’s ChatGPT could make Google’s search engine obsolete. It could literally replace it as the go-to search destination.
So, the code red means Pichai participates in multiple meetings centered around Google’s AI strategy. They deployed forces inside the company to address the threat from ChatGPT to their search engine business and there is a definite urgency to build something to match or exceed it and improve Google’s own search function.
Remember this; Google gets 81% of its overall revenue from advertising. It is the company’s lifeblood, but according to Google’s former head of advertising, Sridhar Ramaswamy, ChatGPT could prevent users from clicking on Google links with ads.
And the advertising revenue for Google/Alphabet in 2021 was a reported $208 billion!
If you have kids, chances are you’ve heard of ChatGBT. It is the bot that users have asked to write school papers and college essays, and it does. Quickly. Reports say it also has been dispensing coding and marriage advice.
It attained over a million users five days after it was launched last month, but the bot is also riddled with errors. It cannot fact-check, and here’s a kicker; it has not been able to distinguish between verified fact and misinformation.
It is also in danger of being canceled by Gen Z and progressives because it is capable of racist and sexist responses.
Whatever it doesn’t do well now will most likely be improved on soon. And in the meantime, it is a critical time for Google as they try to keep pace.
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