I’ve been using Google’s new Bard Large-Language-Model (LLM) for the past few weeks now. While I agree with the general consensus that it’s not as impressive as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, it’s not THAT far off.
What I think should really worry Google and Google Investors (I don’t hold single stocks for any tech company and am not a Google investor) is that ChatGPT and Bard are more compelling products than the old Google search bar for many scenarios.
One main reason for this is: The results aren’t littered with SEO SPAM.
The perfect example of this is a recipe:
At least this site gives you a “jump to recipe” button.” Most do not.
You probably have encountered this problem: You Google search and find a specific recipe, only to have to scroll through all this information that isn’t what you searched for. If you searched for “Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe” you don’t really want to be reading paragraphs about all the different types of butter and whether it should be at room temperature do you?
You want the Recipe FIRST. With ChatGPT, that’s exactly what I get:
Bard not only gives me the recipe, but even one-ups Chat GPT, giving me tips and even telling me where the heck it sourced its answer from:
Bard got me to an answer faster than if I had clicked on a Google blue link and had to scroll through a webpage. And as somebody who bakes some pretty damn good chocolate chip cookies, looking over the recipe from Bard, I can tell the ratios, ingredients, and steps look right.
More and more people are going to discover they can get some answers faster with Bard than Google Search, increasing pressure on Google. They make a lot of money off paid search and search ads, revenue that dropped for a second straight quarter.
Google has to beat back Microsoft’s attempt to steal search market share, while at the same time figuring out how to plug a potential decline in search ad revenue as more people use Bard and start to realize it’s a better product for their search queries than the Google Search bar.
That’s an Innovator’s Dilemma I don’t envy.
I do think the narrative of Google being outpaced by OpenAI and ChatGPT 4 is a bit exaggerated, though. Google certainly has a lot of talent in the AI field with their early acquisition of DeepMind. It’s clear Google Comms and PR is trying to change this media narrative, and I think they might just succeed if they keep doing things like this recent 60 Minutes piece: