The New York Times reported on Sunday that Microsoft Corp.’s Bing is set to replace Alphabet Inc.’s Google…
The New York Times reported on Sunday that Microsoft Corp.’s Bing is set to replace Alphabet Inc.’s Google as the default search service on Samsung devices. Samsung, one of the world’s largest phone makers, is eyeing a switch from Google to Microsoft Bing, which could reduce Google’s annual revenue by around $3 billion.
By establishing itself as one of the tech pivots fanning the flames of Ai by adding OpenAI’s technology to provide ChatGPT-like responses to user queries, Bing has emerged to be a stronger competitor to Google’s search dominance.
As reported by IDC data, Samsung shipped 261 million smartphones in 2022 and has a long-standing collaboration with Microsoft and Google. The Suwon-based company’s devices come pre-installed with a stack of apps and services from Microsoft and Google, including OneDrive and Google Maps.
The deliberation to replace Google Search with Bing is still in the works, and Samsung is far from reaching a final resolution to its plan to sustain its partnership with Google, making it its default provider, the report states. It adds that Google is working on several projects to update and renew its search services to avoid losing ground.
Some of the works include adding artificial intelligence features to its present services, tagged under the project known as Magi, which over 160 people are reportedly working on. A Google spokeswoman, Lara Levin, said, “Google is excited about bringing new AI-powered features to search and will share more details soon.” A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s talks with Samsung. A Samsung spokesman also declined to comment.
The Mountain View, California-based search provider has a dominant market share in mobile devices in the US and much of the rest of the world, thanks to its deals with Samsung and Apple Inc., which the Times reports are valued at approximately $20 billion in yearly sales.
Large language models, such as the one underlying ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing’s chatbot capability, are not new to Google. Google’s chief business officer stated on the company’s fourth-quarter results call in February that the company has been employing LLMs to predict the intent of users’ inquiries. Google is also releasing Bard, its chatbot search assistant, albeit incredibly slowly.
Microsoft Bing’s integration of ChatGPT
The unnerving interaction with Microsoft OpenAI’s ChatGPT has attracted varying commentaries from experts. Launched some months ago, the AI platform has thrilled users with its human-like and intelligent responses.
It is powered by a large language model, or LLM, which is programmed to understand human language and generate responses based on large data corpora. ChatGPT’s LLM is called GPT-3.5. It is an upgrade of OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model. With a whopping 175 billion parameters, GPT-3 is one of the largest and most powerful language-processing AI models to date.
An AI expert from a leading U.S. research university noted, “ChatGPT’s extraordinary contribution is putting the power of AI tools into the hands of the community. For the first time, there is an AI tool that is usable by all, independent of their training in AI. ChatGPT is democratizing the use of AI in language tasks.”
Another AI expert noted, “ChatGPT can help society by providing a tool for search and conceptualization. For example, a lawyer might use ChatGPT to find summaries of similar cases and evidence. More generally, ChatGPT can be used to support research in any field — law, government, medicine, etc. by synthesizing information from vast data sources. It is critical to remember that in order for this information to be useful, it also has to be fact-checked.”