tech Google planning radical changes to search engine

[VOSS]

Quote

Google’s employees were shocked when they learned in March that the South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung was considering replacing Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on its devices.

 

For years, Bing had been a search engine also-ran. But it became a lot more interesting to industry insiders when it recently added new artificial intelligence technology.

 

Google’s reaction to the Samsung threat was “panic,” according to internal messages reviewed by The New York Times. An estimated $3 billion in annual revenue was at stake with the Samsung contract. An additional $20 billion is tied to a similar Apple contract that will be up for renewal this year.

 

A.I. competitors like the new Bing are quickly becoming the most serious threat to Google’s search business in 25 years, and in response, Google is racing to build an all-new search engine powered by the technology. It is also upgrading the existing one with A.I. features, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times.

 

The new features, under the project name Magi, are being created by designers, engineers and executives working in so-called sprint rooms to tweak and test the latest versions. The new search engine would offer users a far more personalized experience than the company’s current service, attempting to anticipate users’ needs.

 

Billions of people use Google’s search engine every day for everything from finding restaurants and directions to understanding a medical diagnosis, and that simple white page with the company logo and an empty bar in the middle is one of the most widely used web pages in the world. Changes to it would have a significant impact on the lives of ordinary people, and until recently it was hard to imagine anything challenging it.

 

Google has been worried about A.I.-powered competitors since OpenAI, a San Francisco start-up that is working with Microsoft, demonstrated a chatbot called ChatGPT in November. About two weeks later, Google created a task force in its search division to start building A.I. products, said two people with knowledge of the efforts, who were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

 

Modernizing its search engine has become an obsession at Google, and the planned changes could put new A.I. technology in phones and homes all over the world.

 

The Samsung threat represented the first potential crack in Google’s seemingly impregnable search business, which was worth $162 billion last year. Although it was not clear whether Microsoft’s work with A.I. was the main reason Samsung was considering a change after the last 12 years, that was the assumption inside Google. The contract is under negotiation, and Samsung could stick with Google.

 

Plans for the new search engine, which demonstrate Google’s ambitions to reimagine the search experience, are still in the early stages.

 

The system would learn what users want to know based on what they’re searching when they begin using it. And it would offer lists of preselected options for objects to buy, information to research and other information. It would also be more conversational — a bit like chatting with a helpful person.

 

But long before the search engine can be rebuilt, the Magi project will add features to the existing search engine, according to internal documents. Google has more than 160 people working full time on it, a person with knowledge of the work said.

 

The planned search additions could also answer questions about software coding and write code based on a user’s request. Google may place an ad under the computer code answers, according to a document.

 

Google is expected to release the tools to the public next month and add more features in the fall, according to the planning document.

 

The company plans to initially release the features to a maximum of one million people. That number should progressively increase to 30 million by the end of the year. The features will be available exclusively in the United States.

 

Jim Lecinski, a former Google vice president of sales and service, said the company had been goaded into action and now had to convince users that it was as “powerful, competent and contemporary” as its competitors.

 

“If we are the leading search engine and this is a new attribute, a new feature, a new characteristic of search engines, we want to make sure that we’re in this race as well,” Mr. Lecinski, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University, said in an interview.

Source

[shyboi]

they trying compete with openAI, a batlle is born

[Badgalbriel]

Bing is the superior service for AI now, but Google will forever be a better pure-search engine. 

[charot]

Who Run the World (AI)

Edited April 16, 2023 by charot

[Bosque]

It's over for Google I fear. 

 

It always happens to huge companies. They become too big and lazy. 

 

The next Sears I fear 

[Smarticle]

AI finally lit a fire under them

[Revolution]

they're shook

[LittleStarmen]

its over. Will

survive but a new technology was born

[kandicha]

Google search has gone downhill in recent years, it’s full of sponsored content and it’s harder to find what you were originally looking for.

[Kayseri Mantisi]

Thank you Samsung, Bing and OpenAI for making them SHOOK 

[bliaz]

[Starshine]

well yeah, I dont know how much longer I have to add reddit to the end of every google search. 

[Keter]

ChatGPT got the old girls scrambling 

[Gladiator]

Bring back the old reverse image search. The new one / Google lens is ****.

[Navy4Life]

There’s nothing I’d like more than to see them collapse. It will never happen but I’d love to see it. 

[splozo]

20 minutes ago, Gladiator said:

Bring back the old reverse image search. The new one / Google lens is ****.

YES omg the google lens is SO SO horrendous not ONCE has it returned the images i search for like what is the actual point of all the wallpaper that comes up 

[ChrisTheLoner]

1 hour ago, Starshine said:

well yeah, I dont know how much longer I have to add reddit to the end of every google search. 

HELP why is this literally what I have to do too when I'm looking for answers on something 

Edited April 17, 2023 by ChrisTheLoner

[elevate]

Google's search (web & image) has been getting progressively worse for years now, YT has become like TMZ...

 

I don't think Microsoft is some saviour, but I prefer them over Google now and am happy to see some real competition in the sphere. 

[Lost In Paradise]

I mean it is kinda crazy that the standard for search has remained "list of text links" for so long

[TROPICUM]

The advertising on Google is horrible... takes up almost a half of the first page and it's not even well moderated so 90% of them are misleading 

 

We love to see these old internet corporations finally have some competition so they cant get their asses UP! 

[nadiamendell]

2 hours ago, ChrisTheLoner said:

HELP why is this literally what I have to do too when I'm looking for answers on something 

Same. 

[popmusicisdead]

3 hours ago, Gladiator said:

Bring back the old reverse image search. The new one / Google lens is ****.

this!

even that Russian site Yandex is better. 

[Illuminati]

They better get their **** together. The most you get on Google nowadays is maybe two pages of results, BURIED by the ads and sponsored scam results with some stuff being impossible to find no matter how specific your search input is.

 

Then there's the stuff people already pointed out - you only get a useful answer if you put "reddit" at the end of your search input, and the new Google Lens which just adds extra steps and no functionality.

[Hephaestus]

6 hours ago, Starshine said:

well yeah, I dont know how much longer I have to add reddit to the end of every google search. 

This 

[La Reina]

This is giving me Snapchat teas where they ruin a good thing by adding too much to it and cause it to tank. Hopefully it's not clunky.