Microsoft sees AI reshaping search as Google calms investors
Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Microsoft Corp., whose quarterly earnings each got a boost from their established search and cloud-computing businesses, used their time with investors to emphasize what's next: artificial intelligence.
In their respective earnings calls on Tuesday, the tech giants, which are becoming rivals in the competition for the future of search, offered up starkly different assessments of just how much disruption is in store for the market. Google executives encouraged investors to trust in the company's long track record as the world's leading search engine, and framed AI as just another shift in its constantly evolving business. Microsoft suggested that something much more dramatic is underway.
Investors seemed to like Microsoft's thesis better, sending its shares up 7.1% in early New York trading, while Alphabet fell 0.8%.
Until recently, Google was viewed as all but invincible in the market for online search, which it dominates worldwide. That changed with the debut of OpenAI's wildly popular chatbot, ChatGPT. Microsoft has begun weaving OpenAI's technology into its Bing search engine, and the partnership has ratcheted up pressure on Google to reinvent its core search business to allow for more of the conversational exchanges that generative AI makes possible.
Speaking to analysts, Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai stressed that Google is investing heavily in AI, yet he downplayed what the technology would mean for the search advertising business, which remains the company's lifeblood. He expressed optimism that users will continue to value online advertising even if their searches yield a summary composed by a large language model, rather than the familiar list of links that Google has long
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