Microsoft is beating Google at their own game
Who would have thought — we have a serious bout in the search. I mean this is, Francis Ngannou vs Jon Jones kind of a big deal.
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I know, your head must be hurting with all the AyEye chat, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to put your brain holder in the sand. AI is freaking huge. This ain’t no Clubhouse.
Look at the adoption rate. This isn’t just a number of users — this is a number of active users. (again, this ain’t no Clubhouse).
The software passed business, law, and medical exams. And mind you — this is version 1.0 🤯
On my recent trip back to Slovenia, I chatted with about a dozen of friends who are in tech. Every one of them is either talking about ideas or already building something. Scale that worldwide — everyone is leveraging AI.
But I digress…
Buying OpenAI is the smartest move Microsoft has made. Search has been broken for a long time which is ironic since I’ve been in the content game for 7+ years.
It’s not that the SEO model is wrong, but if you’re truly honest, it’s hard to get an answer you’re happy with fast.
I’m not getting any schadenfreude seeing Google buckle at its knees. I’ve always been rooting for the underdog but saying Microsoft is an underdog is hilarious.
Microsoft’s team did an amazing job with positioning and messaging with this new tech. Not over the top. They press and shine a light on the problem. Aggravate it and show the solution in real life. Classic copywriting executed in real life during their keynote (I mean PowerPoint).
Virality is hard to predict (no matter what your Influencer TikTokers say). However, there are two reasons why this worked really freaking well.
2- Timing
Eeeeeeeevery body is talking about AI right now. And as the law of category suggests — 90% of the eyes are aimed at the two biggest players. And currently, there’s only one big player.
2- Distribution power
Microsoft is basically embedded in almost every personal computer. The message to you is way easier than OpenAI going in solo. And time is of the essence here.
Bonus points: This relationship will persuade some Microsoft-deniers to try a little bit of that curious Edge cake.
3- Capacity
OpenAI and Microsoft start ogling each other back in 2019. Mcrsft already invested a modest 1 billy to confirm the intention. Why? They need a piece of that search revenue, they have to innovate, and they have the power to do so. Besides distribution, Microsoft supports OpenAI with the Azure service which can handle the computational labor.
Google is worried ofc. Search is bringing in 60% of all revenue and ChatGPT is going to disrupt the search game. Google can’t allow that to happen. By any means necessary.
I mean, check the hurried trainwreck of a launch of BARD.
Microsoft on the other hand, chill as cucumber approach to search with a pretty sweet demo of how it will look like. And it looks… good!
After Google’s Bard AI tool made a factual error, the Alphabet (Google’s parent company) stock fell by 7% (which equates to $100B’s in their checkbook). But more damaging than that is Microsoft’s roundhouse kick to the face. Google lost the round and they need to come back fast.
Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI? 75% of OpenAI profits until it makes back the investment and 49% stake after that.
I’ve never thought that I’d see the day when Microsoft looks… cool!
Google is not going to dilly-dally. It’s going to be vicious warfare. The first round goes to Microsoft tho.
Are you going to be checking Microsoft’s Edge browser with AI?
Originally published on Show Your Horns → A Savage Newsletter about Competition. Gain competitive edge through strategy, smarts or sheer punk-rock attitude.
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