Update: Google this week has announced Bard, its immediate response to Microsoft’s impending roll-out of conversational AI results in its Bing search engine. 

Everyone in marketing seems to have an opinion on ChatGPT, since its explosion in popularity in the recent months. The rise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has the potential to rival search engines by encompassing conversational AI abilities that recently provoked a “code red” within Google headquarters. While everyone has a ‘hot take’ on what’s next for ChaGPT, Google’s own concerns have highlighted the importance for companies to maintain an insight into how we may use search engines in the future.

According to Search Engine Journal, the rise of Open AI’s ChatGPT provides a new way to search for information, threatening to overthrow the search engine giant. The technology used by ChatGPT creates a conversational Q&A function facilitating a quicker search for certain queries, rather than the user manually sifting through Google’s billions of indexed pages. Data Driven Investor claims AI has the capability to “revolutionise how we search for information, and despite only coming to the attention of the wider public, ChatGPT has generated an audience of one million users in just 5 days post release according to Business Insider.  

Recent data from Analytics Insight identified that Google processes nearly nine billion search queries each day, and still leads the market with a share of around 84% of all searches across the world. Unlike Google, Analytics Insight suggests ChatGPT uses a technology which is able to capture “human intelligence” to interpret queries which enables a response using “human-level bilateral dialogue.”

Panic at Google headquarters

Thanks to their new innovative method of search encompassing AI capabilities, ChatGPT has provoked a shift in search engine development strategy, ultimately resulting in a “Code Red” alert at Google headquarters. According to Business Insider, the rise of ChatPT may reduce clicks on Google Ads which generated $208 billion dollars, making up 81% of Googles’ revenue in 2021. 

The introduction of a more convenient chatbot technology may therefore affect Google’s main source of income, prompting a quick response to develop a similar software to rival these companies. CNET explains that Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai has already held meetings to formulate Google’s response to the impending threat proposed by ChatGPT. Insights from Search Engine Journal suggest that Google has approved plans to launch 20 new AI products as well as an updated version of its Google Assistant to rival ChatGPT.