Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On the morning of February 7, Beijing time, it was reported that the Internet search war in the United States had resumed. This time, Google, Microsoft and some startups plan to embed artificial intelligence in search engines in a revolutionary way.

This new artificial intelligence system can directly generate text answers to questions raised by users, of which the most eye-catching is the ChatGPT chat robot developed by OpenAI in San Francisco. This is the first time that Google's search dominance has faced challenges on a newly opened front since it successfully fended off challenges from competitors such as Microsoft Bing a decade ago.

Both Google and Microsoft have announced that they are about to revamp their search engines to include answers provided directly by artificial intelligence. At the same time, a number of search engine startups have embedded artificial intelligence into their services, giving us a glimpse of how the technology behind ChatGPT may change important areas of the Internet today.

Greg Sterling, who has been following the search market since 1999, said the breakthrough seemed sudden but belated. Especially for young users, Google's search results pages are cluttered and full of ads. "people are ready for something more concise, more plausible and not full of ads." He said.

Systems like ChatGPT, based on the so-called large language model, can "understand" complex problems and generate textual responses. For its part, this technology will not directly replace search. The information used to train ChatGPT is at least a year old, and the answers it provides are limited to the information stored in its "memory" rather than searching the web for more targeted materials for specific questions.

As a result, related companies began to compete to develop services that combine artificial intelligence with traditional search. The technology used is called retrieval enhancement, and you need to first use a search tool to identify the pages that contain the most relevant materials, and then use the natural language to "read" them. The resulting results will be injected into large language models such as OpenAI's GPT-3, and then give a more accurate answer.

Instead of subverting the company's own games, Google's competitors say it creates a rare opportunity to develop novel and unique search services.

"Google escaped because so far, everyone, including us, has tried to beat them with better links." Said Sridhar Ramaswamy, a former Google executive and co-founder of search startup Neeva.

His company has begun to embed short text answers in search results pages. To overcome the inherent shortcomings of large language models (which sometimes give erroneous results), Neeva also took the lead in adding reference links to text answers to show the sources behind them.

At the same time, some companies have chosen a more radical approach, abandoning traditional search results altogether and providing users with a pure chat interface similar to ChatGPT.

Microsoft plans to "switch" users between the chat interface and the traditional search interface, according to people familiar with the new Bing interface. The domestic company refused to disclose the authenticity of the screenshots leaked online. You.com, another search startup, has taken this approach, where users can click the "chat" button to cut out the standard search page.

Angela Angela Hoover, co-founder of search startup Andi, says pure chat services are more attractive to the younger generation who are hungry for new experiences.

"Generation Z is flocking to TikTok because they are desperate for something new." "what they want is an accurate answer that can be presented in an intuitive dialogue," she said. "

Aravind Srinivas, co-founder of Perplexity AI, says all bets on the dialogue interface will also lead to more distinctive and practical services. "this is the equivalent of Wikipedia on stimulants, which goes beyond the concept of search engines." He said.

However, companies that use artificial intelligence to supplement search results may find any advantage short-lived. Google said last week that it would include results generated by its own language artificial intelligence system in its search engine "soon" and would also allow users to interact directly with new artificial intelligence technologies.

Stirling believes this could make it harder for competitors to break Google's dominance with unique services. "if Bing integrates artificial intelligence in search in the same way as Google, it probably won't change anything."

However, even if the competition will not be greatly affected, it still seems to have far-reaching implications for the entire online economy. For example, for content publishers that rely on search engines for traffic, users may find the answer directly through the search engine instead of visiting the original web page through a link.

"recommendation traffic is bound to drop dramatically," says Silenivas of Perplexity. "it's not good for content publishers."

He predicts that this will force content publishers to rethink their relationship with search engines, either blocking their sites or charging search engines for content collection and processing.

At the same time, for search engines, the original high-margin business may also be threatened as the cost of generating plain text answers rises. Srinivas estimates that search engines with artificial intelligence will cost seven or eight times as much as traditional search engines.

"these things can be successful only if the value of each request is much higher than it is now." He said.

For Microsoft, since it invested billions of dollars to challenge Google in the early days of Bing, a low profit margin is perfectly acceptable as long as it eventually has a chance to win a lot of market share. In addition, if it can help Microsoft weaken the backbone of its competitors, then lower profit margins in the overall market may also help broader strategic objectives.

At the same time, most search startups say they don't want to rely on advertising, even if it's just to highlight the difference between themselves and Google.

Mr Hoover said Andi planned to use the "free value-added" business model to charge users for more advanced services. "We never thought about advertising. We think advertising is one of the failures of Google search."

However, are consumers willing to pay for the current free content? No company that has tried to incorporate artificial intelligence into search has conducted field tests. Even Google's founders have written that relying on advertising may be the wrong business model, says Mr Srinivas. At this stage, he adds, it's best to put all the options on the table.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.