It’s time to brace for a brand new chapter, Google search chief Prabhakar Raghavan has reportedly warned workers.
He informed Googlers in an all-hands assembly final month that “things have changed” they usually’re “not like they were 15, 20 years ago,” CNBC reported, citing a recording of the assembly it obtained.
“It’s not like life is going to be hunky-dory, forever,” Raghavan additionally stated, per the outlet.
Search stays an important a part of Alphabet’s enterprise, with “search and other” accounting for revenues of $48 billion within the closing three months of final 12 months — greater than $5 billion larger than the identical interval in 2022.
Raghavan’s warning to staff comes as rivals comparable to startup Perplexity AI search to tackle Google’s dominance by growing their very own search engines like google.
CEO Aravind Srinivas introduced Tuesday that it is raised about $63 million in a brand new funding spherical that values the corporate at greater than $1 billion. Perplexity’s backers embrace Jeff Bezos and Nvidia.
Raghavan additionally addressed new rivals within the assembly, CNBC reported. “They may have a new gizmo out there that people like to play with but they still come to Google to verify what they see there because it is the trusted source and it becomes more critical in this era of generative AI.”
Google Search has modified little for greater than 20 years, however the AI growth has pressured its hand. Google stated final 12 months it was “supercharging” and “improving” customers’ search expertise with a generative AI-powered model referred to as Search Generative Experience (SGE).
SGE continues to be in its infancy, however Google began testing “AI overviews” a couple of month in the past by giving some US and UK customers an AI-generated abstract of search outcomes.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has been stepping up its search ambitions. It began rolling out new AI options on Bing final 12 months, together with permitting customers to look visually.
Microsoft stated it was “reinventing” search when it launched the brand new AI-infused Bing final February. CEO Satya Nadella stated on the time” “AI will basically change each software program class, beginning with the most important class of all — search.”
Google did not instantly reply to a request for remark from Business Insider, made exterior regular working hours.