Google to Get an AI Makeover to Take on Bing Chatbot

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. For years, Bing had been a search engine also-ran. But it became a lot more interesting to industry insiders when it recently added new artificial intelligence technology.

Googles answer is to get an AI makeover to take on Bing chatbot. Google is still way ahead in terms of search volume but Bing’s AI chatbot is forcing it to adapt.

The “all-new search engine” powered by its new A.I. technology while at the same time working on adding new A.I.-based features to its current search engine under the project name Magi.

“The new search engine would offer users a far more personalized experience than the company’s current service, attempting to anticipate users’ needs,” the New York Times reported.

New Google search engine. Google has put a team of designers, engineers and executives in charge of building out this new search engine that “could put new A.I. technology in phones and homes all over the world,” according to the report.

The new Google search engine is still in its early stages, with no timeline for when it will be released. But this new effort does “demonstrate Google’s ambitions to reimagine the search experience.”

The new search engine would “learn what users want to know based on what they’re searching.” In addition, it would “offer lists of preselected options for objects to buy, information to research and other information.” At the same time, being more conversational, like talking to a person. Earlier reports have Google talking about big changes coming to Google Search.

In 2009, Google tried to heavily personalize search results where it actually said all search results were being personalized for all users. But a decade later, Google admitted personalization offered little benefit to searchers.

Search personalization was limited and pulled back in a big way, outside of the immediate previous query and some localization based on the user’s location. That may have been a privacy play, but here we are in a world where now Google seems like it can potentially lose market share to Microsoft Bing and other players.

Project Magi. While Google is working on an all-new search engine, a team of more than 160 Googlers are working full-time on adding new features to the existing Google Search. This project is being code-named Magi, according to these reports and may be released as early as next month to a subset of users.

Magi would allow searchers to complete transactions, such as buying shoes or booking flights, according to the report. This would allow searchers to complete financial transactions, all while still incorporating the existing – and lucrative – Google search ads.

These changes can allow searchers to answer questions about “software coding and write code based on a user’s request.” “Google may place an ad under the computer code answers, according to a document,” the report added.

Search is changing incredibly fast and over the next several months will be fascinating to see how search ads, SEO and other forms of marketing change with it.