The daughters of panic are called Magi. Panic is what employees of have felt Google when – according to sources from the New York Times – they knew that Samsungthe Korean giant of smartphones, after years of collaboration would be tempted to switch to the search engine Bing di Microsoft for its integration with the artificial intelligence of ChatGpt/OpenAI. A concern confirmed by Sundar Pichai’s sudden stop on the race for AI: “it can be very dangerous, if all the answers are missing”, said the CEO of Mountain View, “we need rules like for nuclear power”. Magi are the new functions designed by Google to open up to AI and grow its famous search engine. To the point that someone is even talking about a new search engine, radically different from the past.
The numbers at stake
According to internal messages at Google examined by New York Times, Google’s contract with Samsung for Galaxy phones, on which Google’s engine is the default, is worth approx 3 billion dollars of annual revenue. Last year Samsung sold more than 250 million smartphones based on Google’s Android operating system and the two companies have been partners for many years. Others 20 billion dollars are tied to a similar contract with Apple, which will be renewed this year. And beyond the monstrous figures there is the value of the users: choosing a “default” search engine on the mobile browsers of leading companies in the telephone market is worth billions of searches for Google.
Le sprint room
The Mountain View machine got underway as soon as the ChatGpt phenomenon took hold. The first answer is some new functions, called the «Magi» projectwhich were created by designers, engineers and executives who they work in the so-called sprint room to fine-tune and test the latest versions. The new search engine would offer users a much more personalized experience compared to the current service of the company, trying to anticipate the needs of users.
Google comments
Lara Levin, a spokeswoman for Google, said in a statement that “not every brainstorm or product idea results in a launchbut as we’ve said before, we’re excited to bring new AI-powered features to the search engine and will share more details soon.”
The Menlo Park experience
If Samsung and Microsoft have declined comments on this approach, it must be said that Google has been dealing with it for years research on artificial intelligence. His division DeepMind, with workshops (among others) a London, is considered one of the best AI research centers in the world and the company has been a pioneer in AI projects, such as self-driving cars and so-called language models used in the development of chatbots: the T of ChatGpT stands for Transformer, a model introduced by Google in 2017. In recent years, Google has used large language models to improve the quality of search results, but it has refrained from fully adopting AI because he was prone to generating inaccurate or outright false claims.
The new challenge
Now the priority is to gain control of the next big thing in the industry. Last month Google has released the own chatbot, Bard, but the technology has received mixed reviews. The plans for the new search engine, which demonstrate the Google’s ambitions of reimagining the search experience, are still in the early stages.
Magi would keep the advertisements among the search results. Search queries that could lead to a financial transaction, like buying shoes or booking a flight, for example, would still show ads on the results pages.
The Ad Node
It is a important aspect for Googlesince search ads are the main way to earn. The Bard chatbot does not feature ads, and in the tech industry it is expected that AI responses on search engines might make ads less relevant to usersa business that for Google last year achieved a turnover of 162 billion dollars.
Possible applications
According to an executive in a document, reported by the New York Times, Google is exploring many possible areas to use AI in its software and services. For example, the possibility of using the mapping technology of Google Earth cwith the help of artificial intelligence e you search for music through one conversation with a chatbot. A tool called “Gifi» would use AI to generate images in Google Image results. Tivoli Tutor, it would teach users a new language through open text conversations with AI. Another product, Searchalong, would allow users to ask a chatbot questions as they browse the web through Google’s Chrome browser (users could ask the chatbot what activities are happening near an Airbnb accommodation and the AI would scan the page and the rest of the internet for of an answer.