SearchGPT confronts Google positively?! Citi: No need to worry too much | AI Dehydration

Author: Zhang Yifan

Editor: Shen Siqi

Source: Hard AI

Last night, OpenAI released the generative AI search engine SearchGPT, directly challenging Google, Bing, and Perplexity.

Citigroup believes that although the launch of SearchGPT poses a competition to Google, Google's advantages in AI technology and product portfolio can effectively deal with the challenge without much concern.

1. Comparison of AI Search Engines

With the release of SearchGPT, the AI search market now features four major competitors: Google, Bing, Perplexity, and SearchGPT. In comparison, Google has the upper hand in AI technology (supporting more modes) and user base.

1) Release Time of AI Search Features: Perplexity (2023) > Google AI Overview (May 2024) > Bing AI Summary (July 24, 2024) > SearchGPT (July 25, 2024).

2) User Base: Perplexity and Google (AI Overview) are already available to global users. SearchGPT is currently limited to 10,000 users, open only to a small number of users and publishers. Bing AI has not been fully rolled out yet, currently in the testing phase, and only effective for some searches, with gradual expansion expected in the future.

3) User Interface: Overall, the interfaces of each platform are quite similar. Users input questions in the dialogue box, and the AI search engine summarizes a structured answer containing text and image information, along with listing the sources of information. Users can continue to ask follow-up questions or explore more related searches in the sidebar or other search results.

4) Accuracy of Content: Google AI Overview's search results such as "gluing pizza with glue" and "eating stones for nutrition" have left users amused. Perplexity, Bing AI, and SearchGPT have not encountered similar situations so far. The final user experience will be revealed once these AI search engines are fully open to users.

5) Multi-Modality: Currently, Perplexity and SearchGPT only support text search, while Google AI supports text, image, and video searches, taking the lead. (Bing AI's support for multi-modality is currently unknown, based on official demo videos supporting text search)

Overall, although Google has some accuracy flaws, it still maintains its advantage in AI technology (supporting more modes) and user base. In terms of user base, SearchGPT is currently open to only 10,000 users, and Bing AI is still in the testing phase, thus not likely to impact Google in the short term.

2. Market Share Changes

After the launch of SearchGPT, the market is concerned about the competition it poses to Google. As of the time of writing, Google's stock price has dropped by nearly 3.1%.

Referring to historical data, such concerns may be premature. Previously, when Perplexity was launched, the market also worried that AI search would impact Google. However, according to Similarweb data and Google's financial reports for the past two quarters, after the launch of Perplexity, although its traffic has been steadily increasing, its impact on Google's search business has been minimal, with only a slight decline. Benefiting from AI's precise ad targeting, Google's ad business also grew by 11.9% year-on-year in 24Q2.

Statcounter data shows that Google still holds over 90% of the search market share, maintaining a significant lead.

Overall, although the launch of SearchGPT poses competition to Google, considering the past performance of Perplexity and Google's leading advantages in AI technology (supporting multimodal) and user base, the market does not need to be overly concerned at the moment