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

Under the popularity of chat robot ChatGPT, everyone is looking for a cut-in angle. Google is in a hurry because of a combination of Microsoft and OpenAI.

Microsoft recently announced that it would embed ChatGPT-like technology into Bing's search engine and its own Edge browser. Because the form of presentation may be subverted, it has become a consensus for the search industry to usher in intergenerational change.

Thinking about how Nokia pasted at that time, Google immediately sounded the "red alert" and rushed to launch the competitive product Bard. Unexpectedly, Bard made a mistake in the Q & An at the press conference, which led to the ugly share price of the parent company Alphabet, and the event ended slightly awkwardly.

For Google lagging behind in the product launch, Alphabet chairman John Hennessy said that although Google already has the relevant technology, but it is not mature enough, so it is hesitant to turn it into a product. Other executives at the company have also mentioned concerns about reputation, ethics and safety.

Sam Altman, the preemptive CEO of OpenAI, derided Google as a "sleepy search giant" the other day. But there is a reason why Google is so "fainted".

These days, "Google" can be said to be the result of pulling from the advertising pile, and the conspicuous answer may not be the same thing as what you want to ask. For example, Google search for "T-shirt", the home page is mostly advertisements and product recommendations.

Google's home page "T-shirt" search results are so secure that even if revenue is heavily dependent on advertising, Google is still ahead of the pack in its own track, with an 84 per cent share of the global PC search market. Second place is Bing, accounting for less than 9%.

Global PC side of the major search engine market share source: Statista search world shock, Google is naturally the most anxious. OpenAI is a hit is to be careful, but behind a big financier can not avoid Microsoft, Google has no choice but to face the challenge.

Why Microsoft? At the beginning of 2016, Microsoft publicly entered the AI market for individual consumers for the first time, launching the chat robot "Tay". But a few hours later, Tay was urgently removed because of controversy over inappropriate comments.

Not long before the launch of Tay, Google DeepMind launched AlphaGo to beat go champion Lee se-dol. Then Google began to integrate AI technologies such as machine learning into Google buckets.

In the same year, the savior of Microsoft AI appeared. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn, a professional social networking site, and Kevin Scott, which was in charge of LinkedIn's operation at the time, was also included. He was promoted to Microsoft's CTO in 2017.

As a CTO,Scott, he has wanted to make achievements on AI since 2018 and discussed cooperation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whom he has known for a long time.

OpenAI had just published a large language model and a research paper that combined two existing ideas in the field of AI (transformers neural network and unsupervised pre-training), and then came into being the generative pre-training transformation model (Generative Pre-trained Transformer, or GPT).

ChatGPT is driven by the third-generation model GPT-3, and Microsoft's new Bing search engine uses a new version of GPT-3.

In 2018, OpenAI's GPT model was still running on Google Cloud. In 2019, Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI to obtain an exclusive license from GPT, and OpenAI agreed to move from Google Cloud to Microsoft Cloud.

The main goal of Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI at the time was to enhance its search capabilities and provide language translation in Microsoft Office, according to people familiar with the matter. It is reported that the relationship between the two companies has "exceeded Microsoft's initial expectations."

In early 2020, Harry Shum, head of Microsoft's AI business, left, and Scott became publicly in charge of Microsoft's AI strategy.

The OpenAI deal lays the foundation for Microsoft to challenge Google this time. ChatGPT is so popular that it only takes more than two months for the number of monthly active users to exceed 100 million, which is even more exaggerated than the nine months of TikTok. These are running on an expanding network of Microsoft servers and data centers. It is essentially a huge supercomputer that helps OpenAI's model handle all interactions and learn from them.

Such a large-scale consumer interaction can collect huge amounts of user data, promote technology product improvement, and may bring more benefits. Google search has long mastered this positive feedback loop, and search engines can learn from it every time users ask questions and click on the results.

Microsoft today has the opportunity to replicate this positive feedback loop on software such as Bing and Office. Microsoft recently invested another $10 billion in OpenAI, and Microsoft Cloud Services is the exclusive cloud provider for ChatGPT.

"Google has been a monopoly in the search world for too long and has to fight for market share this time," said one AI venture capitalist. "overnight, a lot of friends who don't want to use Windows computers want to try Bing."

Next, Microsoft and OpenAI may launch new platforms that provide generative AI tools for external developers, startups, and larger companies.

"We are building a platform that consists of powerful computing power and AI models that can be used by a lot of people to build businesses," Scott said recently. "the platform is still in the early stages of development."

Google is in a hurry to fight, who loses and who wins? At a press conference in early February, Bard was asked to explain the Weber Telescope findings to a nine-year-old. Bard mentioned that the Weber Telescope was the first to capture images of planets outside the solar system, but astronomers were quick to point out that it was actually first achieved by the European maximum Telescope (VLT) in 2004. There is a factual error in Bard's answer.

Alphabet's share price plummeted for two days, wiping $163 billion off its market capitalization. And, of course, a member of the trillion Club.

Some experts say that Microsoft will not be left alone when Bard makes a mistake. After all, ChatGPT is a newly launched product, and even the founders have repeatedly stressed that the experience of ChatGPT is still terrible. Users often encounter inaccurate situations when they experience it.

Indeed, Microsoft also made factual errors when it demonstrated the function of Bing chat: there were several data errors in interpreting the results. In response, Microsoft CEO Satyanadella said he had expected it, and said: "that's why feedback is important, which can help us learn and improve the model."

Experts point out that the large language model is the foundation of Bard and ChatGPT. Limited to the way the model is built, the result is easy to make mistakes. These models contain data sets of billions of words that are used to train AI to produce plausible answers. The chat robot operates in a way similar to predictive text, and after building a model, it predicts the answer that the user most wants to see based on the text entered by the user.

Dr Andrew Rogoyski, of the Institute of artificial Intelligence at the University of Surrey, said: "ChatGPT is actually a predictor. The system has memorized 1 billion books and can answer questions accordingly. Everything it answers is essentially repeating what someone has said before."

Google, on the other hand, said the wrong answer to the press conference showed that Bard had to undergo "more rigorous testing" before it could be promoted on a larger scale.

Microsoft is so aggressive with new products this time that it remains to be seen whether it can stir up the search industry. After all, the number of users is not in the same Rank, and Google quickly made a strategic defense. If there is no big reshuffle, Microsoft theoretically has only a "window period" and can take advantage of the chaos to carve up more shares.

According to Microsoft, every 1 percentage point increase in search market share brings the company another $2 billion in revenue. The popularity of chat robots has given Microsoft an opportunity. Microsoft said that with the AI blessing, Bing will be able to understand users' questions more deeply and give smarter answers, and advertisers will also be attracted by this new situation.

It is not easy for Microsoft to catch up with Google on this track. Microsoft's search and news advertising revenue is $3.2 billion, while Google's search advertising revenue is $42.6 billion, according to the two companies' latest quarterly reports. Chatbots require a lot of computing power, so using AI to grab or maintain market share will cost a lot of money.

Mark Riedl, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said: "I don't think the new version of Bing, which uses a large language model, will pose a serious threat to Google search. Google's technology reserves in this area should be able to compete with Microsoft and OpenAI."

But he also said: "but it is a feat for Microsoft to bring the search industry back to competition overnight." this competition will be very interesting. "

When launching Bing chat, Nadella said: "this is a new day in the search field, and rapid innovation is coming. Just today, a game really started."

The search, attack and defense war has just begun and the leader has been caught by surprise, which has been loved by everyone since ancient times. Nokia, which clung to the old system at that time, was changed by Android and became a classic scene in the consumer electronics industry. Coincidentally, Microsoft once worked with Nokia to develop Windows Phone, which is now out of print, and Android is owned by Google.

It's just that Google was caught off guard this time. Google didn't take it as lightly as Nokia did, but immediately moved out of Bard to fight, even in a hurry.

Google has been forced to adjust the pace this time, and the search results interface that has lasted for so many years may be revamped, and so will the way search ads are displayed. The whole industry faces challenges, with Google, which accounts for 80% of its revenue, bearing the brunt.

Microsoft, with relatively diverse revenues, seems to be at ease. Microsoft CTO said: "I think we will figure out what the advertising unit is, will find the right business model, Microsoft has the strength."

No matter who loses or wins, Microsoft makes Google nervous. Google CEO Sandal Pichai also requires all employees to participate in the Bard test.

Search engine has long been "complaining" track rolled up, it is always a good thing for consumers, OpenAI can be regarded as using ChatGPT to fire the first shot in the search offensive and defense war, which can not be ignored.

At its earnings meeting in the fourth quarter of 2022, Google announced that it would disclose the financial status of its AI business separately in the next quarter. Pichai added: "our trip to AI has just begun and the best scenery is yet to come."

Believe that the serious Google, the aggressive Microsoft and other players will work together to show consumers a new and vibrant search ecology.

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