When Microsoft first invested in OpenAI, perhaps it didn’t expect ChatGPT to be so popular? However, the development prospect of generative artificial intelligence is clearly very promising, otherwise it would not continue to invest in OpenAI. From $1 billion to $2 billion, to the current $10 billion, OpenAI has actually become a Microsoft controlled enterprise.
1. The popularity of ChatGPT has shown Microsoft a business opportunity
When the market is in a very hot period, Microsoft obviously does not want ChatGPT to be just a question answering intelligent robot for people to “entertain”. Microsoft hopes to realize realization through ChatGPT, which may also be an attempt to launch the new version of Bing. The introduction of Bing, a generative artificial intelligence, naturally also hopes to achieve a rapid return on investment. This is the same idea as after Facebook launched the concept of the metauniverse, except that the changed course of Meta did not quickly achieve a revenue shift, and the popularity of the concept of the metauniverse did not actually translate into profits.
Meta is clearly not satisfied. Perhaps in order to learn from Facebook’s experience, with the popularity of ChatGPT, Microsoft first thought about how to quickly cash out. Microsoft is very clever in targeting the search business that people rely heavily on, and generating advertising revenue through search.
This is why when ChatGPT became popular, Google was the first to be scared. Because the popularity of ChatGPT may overturn people’s understanding of search engines, or an emerging acceptance ability. This is a change from passive to active, and ChatGPT can also provide some opinions or suggestions, not simple content output, which is different from before.
When Microsoft started deploying ChatGPT applications with great fanfare, Google also launched its own response strategy in time, but Bard’s first shot didn’t go off. I believe that Google will not give up. On the contrary, more investment may continue. How dare Google take it lightly for ChatGPT, which wants to strangle its own destiny.
Google Actively Copes with ChatGPT Competition
In fact, the competition between the two sides is already on the way. However, the more cunning Microsoft does not plan to completely defeat Google’s market, but just wants to take advantage of ChatGPT’s preemptive advantage to improve advertising revenue in the search market. As a result, we see that Microsoft is contacting advertisers in the market, hoping to add more advertising content to the new version of Bing. It is reported that Microsoft has contacted the advertiser Horizon Media and the two sides have cooperated to plan to launch advertisements.
More importantly, advertisers can also accept this, because the switching of hot spots itself has a certain leading effect. If you can seize the first opportunity, it may be immeasurable for expanding your reputation and bringing influence. The place to try is to place advertisements in the space below the response generated by AI. Microsoft also said that every 1 percentage point increase in its search market share would earn an additional $2 billion per year. This is also a strategy for Microsoft to launch the new version of Bing in a timely manner after ChatGPT became popular.
However, in response to the search “crisis” that Bing is facing with a large number of intelligent conversations, which means minimizing errors as much as possible, Microsoft said that the company will implement some dialog restrictions on Bing AI. For example, chatting with them will be limited to 50 questions per day; 5 responses per question; In addition, Bing AI does not talk about itself. The reason for this restriction is the fear of making mistakes. Microsoft has also stated that long chat conversations with 15 or more questions may confuse the Bing model, leading to Bing giving repetitive answers, or being provoked to respond in a manner that may not necessarily be helpful.
Microsoft hopes to make a new attempt at advertising in the search market, which is a simple change from the past. In traditional search advertising, users first enter search keywords, which advertisers purchase, allowing their product images or official website addresses to appear in search results. Now, Microsoft plans to insert past search ads into the response content of the conversation robot.
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Google has seen the pressure and is actively responding. If Microsoft can immediately bring a revolutionary change to the search market with ChatGPT, it may be premature. This is a gradual process, just like the original proposal of the metauniverse was also popular for a while, and many companies have followed up, but now it seems that many have also made adjustments. The landing of the metauniverse is not as simple and straightforward as imagined.
Microsoft’s attempt is also gradual, first introducing more advertising cooperation, and then improving its position in the search market and profitability. Microsoft will let Bing’s AI response directly provide the answer advertisers want to provide. This implantation may be more explicit, but such implantation would violate the fairness of AI itself, similar to a bidding ranking, where whoever pays more may have their advertising directly presented in the AI response. This has actually violated the original intention of ChatGPT. As Musk said, ChatGPT has become “utilitarian” and is no longer its ultimate intention of free and open source.
Microsoft must have come up with its own ideas on how to make money. Microsoft also stated that the advertising market for artificial intelligence responses has great potential and is only the beginning. Microsoft plans to collaborate with partners and the advertising industry in the future. Microsoft is still very optimistic about the future. When launching Bing Chat, Microsoft CEO Nadela said, “This is a new day in the search field, with rapid innovation coming soon. Just today, a game has really started.”
Under the aggressive attack of Microsoft, Google obviously will not “sit idly by”, but can only stimulate greater technological potential. At Google’s performance meeting in the fourth quarter of 2022, Google announced that it would separately disclose the financial status of its AI business next quarter. When Google feels the crisis, it will definitely go all out to deal with the challenging crisis. In terms of generative artificial intelligence, we may see more perfect presentations. As for advertising revenue, it may just be one of them.
In the domestic market, we have also seen Baidu’s active participation. In addition to the layout of ChatGPT, the enthusiasm for AI participation in the domestic market is also very high. According to data from Tianyan Survey, up to now, there are more than 483000 robot related enterprises in China, of which more than 128000 were newly registered in 2022, with a growth rate of 36.9%. Guangdong ranks first in the region with over 99000 households, while Jiangsu and Shandong rank second and third respectively. As for the layout of robots, many enterprises are also involved in the field of artificial intelligence. Will emerging intelligent robots become more diverse due to the emergence of ChatGPT?