By default, almost all Android smartphones, or at least those running Google’s version of its operating source, arrive with Google Search as the search engine. The Google Search bar at the top or bottom of a device’s home page have become a constant fixture on Android devices. Through them and the search bar on the Chrome browser that is also pre-installed on just about every Android device out there, Google has a near monopoly hold of the search market on its mobile platform.
As if that’s not enough, the search giant does engage its mobile partners like Apple by paying millions of dollars in multi-year contracts to stay as the default search option on their devices. There are over a billion iPhones in use in the world and Google, as of the last time that contract was in the news, splashes a whopping USD 15 billion to make sure Apple keeps it as the default search option on those devices. On Android, it doesn’t have to pay as much since it runs the show but, over the years, it has increasingly become reliant to its Android device-making partners keeping as the main search option that it will be largely affected by any change to the status quo. It is not just by sheer luck or coincidence that the Search widget is one of the first things you’ll see on a mobile device.
Lately, however, that dominant position has come under threat. The rise of what is being called generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven by conversational chatbots like Open AI’s ChatGPT has meant that, for the first time in ages, traditional search, like the one fronted by Google where one keys in keywords and gets a page full of blue hyperlinks and ads, is threatened. Things have escalated with ChatGPT now being integrated into Bing, Google Search’s main competitor from Microsoft, Google’s own key rival.
The new Bing with AI, launched months ago, has slowly become accessible to users around the world, though still on a limited trial basis and, from our own use cases, manages to impress and totally alters how we look for information on the world wide web. That realization, it appears, is not just by us and other users of conversational chat bots. Big Google partners like Samsung, it is being reported, have also been taking note.
“Google’s employees were shocked when they learned in March that the South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung was considering replacing Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on its devices,” wrote The New York Times on Sunday.
While Google is also testing its own conversational AI chatbot, Bard, there’s barely any visible integration of the same capabilities as those users can find in the new Bing on Google Search and phone makers, buoyed by the need to keep up with the times, may just go where the people are headed if the pace in AI and AI tools and products since late last year when ChatGPT dropped is to be kept.
Sure, Google is said to be actively working on countering the ChatGPT wave and maintain not just its earlier lead in the world of AI with its widely acclaimed research but also its dominant position in the search engine and browser markets where it currently eclipses everyone.
It is not hard to see why Google would be in panic mode. Samsung already has a working relationship with Microsoft that has run for many years and which has seen the latter’s apps pre-installed on its devices. Heck, even the latest Galaxy A series devices available for purchase in Kenya keep this arrangement going.
So, will Samsung bite and go the way of Redmond? It is hard to say right now. We expect to see Google come out to redeem itself with many exciting AI and AI-centred announcements at I/O in a few weeks and we are still many months away from the next big Samsung release so, in the short term, anything can happen. Microsoft may get a big boost by having Samsung pre-install its new Bing app on its devices and have Bing as the default search on both the devices and its popular Samsung Internet browser app or, Google may just manage to renegotiate its contract with the Koreans and be assured of the eyeballs of billions for a few more years.
