Gmail creator says Google missed its opportunity with AI to maintain search dominance — which is barely clinging on after the antitrust monopolist ruling

Google is well-equipped with vast resources to dominate the AI landscape but continues to lag behind competitors like Microsoft and OpenAI.

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What you need to know

What you need to know

Apple and Google are often considered late bloomers in theAI landscapecompared toMicrosoftwhich hopped onto the bandwagon and adopted the tech across its products and services. In the just-concluded antitrust case, Judge Amit Mehta ruled thatGoogle is a monopolist in the search landscapedue to its dominance in the category.

The company will likely appeal the antitrust ruling, pushing regulation measures beyond the horizon. Experts, including a former Google engineer, saythe company has bigger fish to fry with OpenAI’s SearchGPT toolthan the antitrust monopolist ruling and regulation.

Google is vastly equipped with the data, talent, and computing resources to potentially compete with key players in the AI space like Microsoft and OpenAI neck and neck. However, its efforts and ventures in AI have been shot in the foot. For instance,Google’s AI Overviews featurehighlighted the company’s unpreparedness to venture into the space aftererroneously recommending eating rocks, and glue, and potentially even committing suicide.

Interestingly, when Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched the company in 1998, they envisioned it as an AI company. Gmail Creator Paul Buchheit recently touched base with the Y Combinator Startup podcast crew to shed more light on the company’s founding mission and missed opportunities in the AI landscape, despite its vast resources (viaBusiness Insider).

How Google missed opportunities in the AI landscape

How Google missed opportunities in the AI landscape

Admittedly, Google’s efforts in the AI landscape can’t go unnoticed. Like its competitors, the company has an AI-powered chatbot dubbedGoogle Gemini(formerly Google Bard). It can generate content and works seamlessly with Google services like Gmail, Docs, and more to enhance productivity.

However, for more sophisticated and advanced features like advanced text generation and coding assistance, you’ll need the $20 subscription forGemini Advanced. Gemini Advanced competes withOpenAI’s ChatGPT PlusandMicrosoft’s Copilot Pro.

As you may know, AI heavily relies on tools like Google for training. Based on this premise, Google should be at the forefront of this technology since it’s well-positioned to leverage these resources. However, the company is unable to tap into these opportunities.

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According to Buchheit, Google seemingly lost its AI vision when its parent company, Alphabet, reshuffled it and made Sundar Pichai the CEO in 2015. Google’s founders seemingly took a backseat, leaving little drive toward the company’s AI visions as more effort was placed on maintaining its dominance in search.

Google leverages its dominance in search to sell ads to users, but cutting-edge and emerging tools likeChatGPTandCopilotare increasingly becoming a threat to this business model. These AI-powered tools can generate simple, bite-size answers to queries, completely redefining how users interact with the internet.

It’s worth noting that these tools are occasionally riddled with challenges such as misinformation, downtimes, and more. As these issues become more prevalent, users are inclined to use the conventional way of searching for things on the internet —Google.

According to Buchheit:

“A search company has an inherent tension between profitability and giving the right answers because there’s always a temptation that if you make your results worse, people will actually click on more ads.”

In the early days, before the Alphabet reorg, Google was already ahead of its time. Buchheit says Google had developed aDALL-E 3 iterationand AI-powered chatbot dubbed Lambda (originally called Human because it was “conscious”). The image generational tool Image gen was prohibited from generating images in human form.

“A lot of Google’s business is just to deal with regulators,” added Buchheit. “AI is an inherently disruptive technology.” The company’s AI mission and vision took a backseat as a bold attempt to be risk-averse to avoid the challenges that come with the tech.

Kevin Okemwa is a seasoned tech journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya with lots of experience covering the latest trends and developments in the industry at Windows Central. With a passion for innovation and a keen eye for detail, he has written for leading publications such as OnMSFT, MakeUseOf, and Windows Report, providing insightful analysis and breaking news on everything revolving around the Microsoft ecosystem. You’ll also catch him occasionally contributing at iMore about Apple and AI. While AFK and not busy following the ever-emerging trends in tech, you can find him exploring the world or listening to music.