Google (GOOGL) is making a rare change to its search page — and it’s doing so to make room for AI.
The search giant is testing a feature that places an “AI Mode” button directly underneath the search bar. It replaces the “I’m feeling lucky” button, which takes users directly to the top search result instead of showing a list of options.
A company spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the feature became available for some users over the past week and said it’s rolling out for some users of its “Labs” feature, which often tests new products. Not all of them go on to be launched widely.
The new feature is Google’s latest attempt to keep up in the field of AI. The company has felt the heat from OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT tool, with Alphabet investors showing concern that the upstart could steal market share from Google when it comes to search.
OpenAI launched a ChatGPT web search feature for some users in October. The tool allows users to ask questions “in a more natural, conversational way,” the company said in a blog post at the time. “Go deeper with follow-up questions, and ChatGPT will consider the full context of your chat to get a better answer for you,” OpenAI said. The feature rolled out to all users in February.
Google raced to build its Gemini AI chatbot after ChatGPT launched in 2022, with the company giving its engineers 100 days to build the tool to avoid falling too far behind. Gemini and ChatGPT have consistently rated among the top-ranked chatbots.
Despite that, there is a massive discrepancy in usership between the two tools. Google’s Gemini AI has about 35 million daily active users, while ChatGPT has about 160 million, according to an analysis revealed during an antitrust hearing in April.
Alphabet has a market cap of $1.95 trillion. Of the $237.9 billion the company generated in ad revenue in 2023, $175.0 billion, or 73.6%, came from Google Search, according to Yahoo Finance.
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