Tiago Bianchi
Research expert covering internet & gaming in Latin America and Spain
AI-powered online search - statistics & facts
The release of ChatGPT sent shockwaves through various digital sectors, none more so than the online search market. The disruptive modality of artificial intelligence-powered search, led by chatbots engaging users in conversational interactions to deliver results, has thrown giants like Google and Microsoft into a frenzied competition with start-up companies and international challengers. Risking companies' investments while casting doubt on the reliability of online information due to inherent inaccuracies of the generated search results, the AI-powered search presents alluring prospects but emerges as a risky gamble for the companies willing to adopt it.
Hearing the starting gun, Microsoft announced a multi-billionaire investment in OpenAI in early 2023, launching a new version of Bing, powered and programmed to work like ChatGPT inside its platform. With a troubled start, Google rushed to release its own chatbot Bard in February 2023, later relaunching and incorporating it into Gemini. Other online search companies released their chatbot alternatives: South Korean company Naver announced Cue, tailored for queries in Korean, while Chinese giant Baidu released a national and international version, Wénxīn Yīyán and ERNIE Bot, all during the second half of 2023.
While concerns regarding AI-generated online content are part of the risks and challenges of AI adoption, the rush to implement these solutions already caused enough damage for interested companies. Errors performed by Bard during its release made Google lose around 100 billion U.S. dollars in market value, despite other tools committing similar inaccuracies. Later, results on Google’s AI Overviews echoed the embarrassment, exposing the early stage in which these technologies are offered and managed. While companies are exploring functionalities and entering into risky agreements, the race to develop the best AI search tool candidate has been more reliant on seizing opportunities rather than genuinely striving to provide the best results.
What is AI-powered online search?
Largely based on large language processing models (LLMs), AI-powered search engines are conversational generative AIs that combine deep learning techniques, users’ inputs, and growing datasets, to provide search results in a dialogue-style output. Despite slightly different ways of presenting their answers, the revolutionary aspect of turning online search into a chat makes it more interactive and dynamic than the classic search result experience, setting a new paradigm for the industry and opportunities for search advertising.The main AI-powered search names
Despite the solid and long-running monopoly of Google’s search engine and Microsoft's Bing competition in the global online search market, San Francisco-based start-up OpenAI became the spearhead of the AI-powered search trend by releasing ChatGPT in November 2022. Gathering a million users in just five days and another 100 million two months after its release, it became the second fastest-growing consumer application in history, sparking and leading the interest in the trend and AI applications in general. For now, ChatGPT is the most used AI brand in the United States and worldwide, enjoying fair popularity and loyalty among its customers.Hearing the starting gun, Microsoft announced a multi-billionaire investment in OpenAI in early 2023, launching a new version of Bing, powered and programmed to work like ChatGPT inside its platform. With a troubled start, Google rushed to release its own chatbot Bard in February 2023, later relaunching and incorporating it into Gemini. Other online search companies released their chatbot alternatives: South Korean company Naver announced Cue, tailored for queries in Korean, while Chinese giant Baidu released a national and international version, Wénxīn Yīyán and ERNIE Bot, all during the second half of 2023.
And the challenges ahead
So far, the shockwaves caused by the massive adoption of ChatGPT still have not convinced all customers. Despite over a quarter of surveyed U.S. adults trying and sustaining reasons for using AI-powered search tools across all generations, the majority remains unimpressed or skeptical about AI-tailored results. With little changes in the market share of big search companies, the trend sees more optimism among marketers, who strongly believe in the effectiveness of chat-based search advertising and reflect the enormous investments in the sector.While concerns regarding AI-generated online content are part of the risks and challenges of AI adoption, the rush to implement these solutions already caused enough damage for interested companies. Errors performed by Bard during its release made Google lose around 100 billion U.S. dollars in market value, despite other tools committing similar inaccuracies. Later, results on Google’s AI Overviews echoed the embarrassment, exposing the early stage in which these technologies are offered and managed. While companies are exploring functionalities and entering into risky agreements, the race to develop the best AI search tool candidate has been more reliant on seizing opportunities rather than genuinely striving to provide the best results.
