OpenAI Is A Bigger Threat To Google Than U.S. Regulators

Google is facing a bigger threat from Sam Altman's OpenAI than from U.S. regulators, even as it awaits a decision on how antitrust authorities in Washington plan to level the playing field in the internet search business, Aditya Soni and Kenrick Cai reported for Reuters.

An increasing number of people using AI tools, including OpenAI's popular ChatGPT chatbot, is already eroding Google's dominance.

A U.S. ruling, which found that Google built an illegal search monopoly, is being considered a significant win for regulators.

However, an increasing number of people using AI tools, including OpenAI's popular ChatGPT chatbot, is already eroding Google's dominance, according to sources, investors, and analysts.

"I think for Google right now, AI is a much bigger deal than the ruling. AI is fundamentally changing how the search product also works," said Arvind Jain, a former Google engineer who worked on products including Search for a decade.

Jain, who now runs an enterprise search firm called Glean, said AI's impact is immediate compared to any effect from these rulings, which get appealed and take a long time to impact the market.

Google has long been synonymous with search, commanding around 90% of the global market share and generating about $175 billion in annual revenue through the business. Even Apple, which prefers to build all the software and much of the hardware that goes into its devices, has allowed Google to be its default search engine for a substantial fee.