Google devising radical search changes to beat back AI rivals

Written by Nico Grant

Google employees were shocked to learn in March that South Korean consumer electronic giant Samsung considered replacing Google with Microsoft Bing as its default search engine for devices.

Bing was a second-tier search engine for years. It became more interesting for industry insiders after it added artificial intelligence technology.

The New York Times reviewed internal messages that indicated the threat was panic. The Samsung contract was estimated to have a $3 billion annual revenue. Contracts that are up for renewal in the coming year.

Google has responded by building a brand new search engine powered with AI technology. The New York Times reviewed internal documents that revealed the company is upgrading its existing search engine with AI features.

Designers, engineers, and executives are working together in sprint rooms, to test and tweak the new features. The new search engine will offer users a more personalized experience, anticipating their needs.

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Lara Levin said that not every product or brainstorming idea will lead to a launch. However, as we have said previously, we are excited to bring new AI-powered search features and we will be sharing more details shortly.

Google's search engine is used by billions of people every day to find restaurants, directions and medical diagnoses. That simple white page in the middle with the logo of the company and the empty bar at the top of it is the most popular webpage in the world. It would be a major change to the lives of many people.

In November,, demonstrated a ChatGPT chatbot. Google, according to two sources with knowledge, created a taskforce in its search division two weeks after that to begin building AI products.

Google has been obsessed with modernizing its search engine. The planned changes may bring new AI technology to phones and homes around the world.

Samsung's threat was the first crack in Google’s search business that seemed impregnable and valued at $162 billion. Google assumed that Microsoft's AI work was the primary reason Samsung considered a change in the last 12 years. Samsung may decide to stick with Google if the contract is still being negotiated.

How to use ChatGPT for your smartphone.

Google employees were shocked to learn that Google employees would consider changing search engines every year.

When told by the company that it was looking for volunteers to help prepare material for a Samsung pitch, some employees reacted with surprise and emojis. One person replied: 'Wow! OK, that is wild.'

Google's spokesperson stated that it was constantly improving its search engine so that partners would have more reasons to choose Google, and that Android phone manufacturers were free to use technologies from other companies to enhance their user experience.

Samsung and Microsoft declined comment.

Google has been researching AI for many years. The DeepMind Lab in London is one of the top AI research centers around the world. It has pioneered AI projects such as the self-driving car and large language models used to develop chatbots. Google has used large-language models to improve its search results in recent years. However, it has not fully adopted AI due to the fact that AI is prone to making false or biased statements.

The priority now is to gain control of the next big thing in the industry. Google's own chatbot Bard was released last month to mixed reviews.

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The plans for the new Google search engine are still in their early stages. There is no timetable as to when the new technology will be released.

When users first use the system, it will learn what they want to know. It would also offer pre-selected lists for items to purchase, information to research, and other information. It would be more conversational, like talking to a person who is helpful.

Magi will, however, add new features to its existing search engine before it can be rebuilt. This is according to documents. Google employs more than 160 full-time employees, according to a source with knowledge of its work.

Magi will keep ads mixed in with the search results. Ads will still appear on the results page for search queries that can lead to financial transactions, like buying shoes or booking flights.

It's important to Google because search ads are its primary source of revenue. Bard doesn't feature ads and the tech industry has predicted that AI answers to search engine queries could make ads less relevant for users.

According to a document, Google may place an ad under the computer code answers. It could also respond to questions about software coding or write code in response to a user request. According to a document, Google could place ads under the computer code solutions.

Google invited employees to try out Magi's features last week and encouraged them to follow up with questions in order to evaluate its conversational capabilities. Google will release these tools to the general public next month, and then add new features in the autumn.

The company intends to release these features initially to no more than 1 million users. This number is expected to increase gradually, reaching 30 million users by the end the year. These features will only be available in the United States.

Google also investigated efforts to allow people to use Google Earth’s mapping technology, with the help of AI, and search for music via a conversation with an AI chatbot. A Google director wrote this in a document.

Other product ideas are at various stages of development. GIFI, a tool that uses AI to create images for Google Image results, would be called. Tivoli tutor, another tool, teaches users a language using AI text conversations.

Another product, Searchalong would allow users to ask a chatbot question while browsing the web using Google Chrome. The chatbot could be asked to find activities nearby an Airbnb rental. It would then scan the web and other pages for the answer.

Jim Lecinski said that the former Google vice-president of sales and services had been pushed into action. The company now has to convince its users that they are as 'powerful', competent and current as their competitors.

In an interview, Lecinski said that if we were the leading search engine, and this was a brand new attribute, feature, or characteristic of search engines we wanted to be sure we were also in this race.