The disruption to Google’s paid search business model might be on the horizon. Search-share is dominated by Google. Other rivals such as Bing and Duck Duck Go have been increasing share, but there has not been a recent material threat to Google’s search business.

ChatGPT, a product of the company OpenAI, might be the first true threat. ChatGPT is a learning chatbot that can write blog posts, essays, advertising copy, or simply give you the answer to the question you’re searching for.

Microsoft is rumored to be investing $10 billion dollars (along with receiving a 49% stake) into ChatGPT and will be incorporating the technology into their Bing search engine. What does this mean? Google’s search engine results page (SERP) provides the best website choices to answer your search query. In most cases, you still need to decide which website to traffic to in order to find the information you desire. Bing, combined with ChatGPT, could provide you the answer you’re looking for without the need to click-thru to another website.

ChatGPT scours the entire web, not just to index a catalog of relevant search results, but to actually learn the context of information and provide it to its users in seconds. What does all this mean for the future of automotive search or search in general? Time will tell. It’s widely known that Google has their AI platform on the horizon… but in the meantime, it’s possible Microsoft/Bing could extract search share from the behemoth, Google. Microsoft is also looking to integrate ChatGPT into their Office suite of products, which could threaten the rise of Google Sheets/Docs/Slides etc.

For some more context, here are a few relevant links.

https://siliconangle.com/2022/12/22/reports-say-google-panicking-threat-posed-openais-chatbot/

https://newsletter.businessinsider.com/view/5b046b022ddf9c561f665c33hzm2y.g83/f2496ee2