“I think for Google right now, AI (is) a much bigger deal than the ruling.” That’s a quote from Arvind Jain, a former Google engineer. This is a true statement, and several people agree with this quote. Despite the recent DOJ ruling, OpenAI is the most immediate threat to Google at the moment.
What ruling was the quote referencing? On Monday, The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ruled that Google is operating an illegal monopoly over the search market. Right now, the company accounts for more than 90% of the search market, and it’s not shy about throwing its weight (and money) around to keep it that way. For example, we found out that Google pays billions of dollars each year to Apple to make Google the default search engine on iOS devices.
Since the ruling has been passed, we’re going to have to wait for some sort of repercussions toward Google. And wait, we shall because there’s no telling how many months or years it will be until the government starts taking tangible actions against the company.
OpenAI is the main threat to Google at the moment
So, the ruling by the DOJ is enough to keep Sundar Pichai up at night, but that night won’t come soon. The main thing poking Google is its AI rival OpenAI. This is the company that caused Google to establish a code red when it first released ChatGPT. Despite Google’s best efforts to put a lid on the Microsoft-backed startup, OpenAI has been releasing one game-changing product after another. Its models seem to be more advanced than Google’s in certain areas as well.
SearchGPT
Now, OpenAI is about to step on another one of Google’s toes (and it chose one of its big toes). We recently got the news that OpenAI was working on an AI-powered search engine. This is something that could take a chunk out of Google’s share of the search market.
Named SearchGPT, this is going to act similarly to Perplexity. When you search for something, you’ll see an AI-generated rundown of what you looked up, much like Google’s AI Overviews. However, SearchGPT will surface the sources it got its information from.
While other search engines have yet to put a dent in Google’s search dominance, OpenAI might have the power to. ChatGPT is easily the most popular chatbot on the internet. We’re sure that millions of people will hop to SearchGPT for their search needs.
Integration with iOS
So, Google has rooted its way into iOS by being its default search engine. However, there might be a change in the wind, as Apple partnered with OpenAI to bring GPT-4o to iOS. However, as mentioned by Reuters, the DOJ court ruling might have an impact on this little arrangement.
Google’s deal with Apple was a major point of the anti-trust case. This is, obviously, a huge anti-competitive move. Not many companies have the capital to blow more than $10 billion each year on a deal. There are other search engines out there on the market, but each of them deserves a chance to be on the iPhone or iPad. However, Google’s big enough to block the rest of the competition from even having a chance at that. In 2021, Google spent $26 billion to keep Google Search plugged into iPhones. How many smaller search engines have the money to do that? Not many!
So, we know that one of the main changes from this ruling will be putting the kibosh on this deal. Apple will either have to choose another default search engine or stick with its own. Since Apple pushes a ton of iPhones each year, Google is going to be missing a chunk of its revenue when that happens.
OpenAI could be the one to take Google down a peg… but there’s one thing
Since ChatGPT was the first chatbot to really hit the mainstream (Meta released one a little while before, but it was child’s play compared to ChatGPT), it was pretty much grandfathered in as the most renowned chatbot. Much like how people refer to the act of just looking something up on the internet as “Googling”, most people refer to using ChatGPT when they refer to using any Chatbot.
So, if there’s any company that has the ability to take a big enough bite out of Google’s lunch, it’s ChatGPT. We have no idea how many people are going to flock over to SearchGPT when it eventually launches. Also, the GPT models tend to always have the upper hand over Gemini’s models.
So, it seems like little ol’ OpenAI might be the straw that breaks Google’s back. The only issue is that its close relationship with Microsoft is being watched closely. Regulators are looking into Microsoft’s scale-tipping $13 billion investment into OpenAI to see if it qualifies as an anti-competitive practice. Again, not many companies have $13 billion in general, let alone $13 billion to spend on one company. So, there’s a chance that Microsoft could be throwing its weight around for its own needs. Its Copilot AI platform is plugged directly into OpenAI’s models, so there’s definitely some cause to be cautious.
If regulators find that this is anti-competitive, then there’s a chance that this partnership could be in jeopardy. If that happens, then OpenAI (the company that’s blowing through money like a loose cannon lottery winner), may not have the funds to properly go up against Google.
It’s all a waiting game
We’re waiting to see what the government will do to Google. We’re waiting to see what SearchGPT will have on the company. It’s all a big waiting game at this point. So, until real change happens, life will go on.