Microsoft News: Samsung may ditch Google Search in favor of Bing on its phones

According to a report published by the New York Times, Samsung is considering replacing Google as the default search engine, with Bing ditching its years-long relationship with Google. The report suggests that Google learned about the development back in March and reacted with panic.

The report also highlights why Google thought Samsung was considering switching to Bing. It says that the likely reason behind the move is the recent advancement of Bing searches with the help of OpenAI’s GPT-4. According to Microsoft, the new Bing now has more than 100M daily active users.

Samsung pays a sum of $3 billion annually to Google for using its search as the default option. Ditching Google Search in favor of Bing will mean that Google will no longer get $3 billion from the South Korean tech giant. After seeing the potential of what the new Bing can do, Google is working on integrating its artificial intelligence technologies with search.

However, Samsung has not finalized the switch, and it may never do if Google manages to pull off the integration of AI into its existing search well. Rumor has it that Google will show off its Bing AI search equivalent at its I/O developers conference on May 10.

Google’s equivalent of Bing Chat is currently the Bard, but the latter is not as capable as the former. Microsoft currently enjoys an edge when it comes to conversational AI. However, given that Google has enormous search data, the company might outmaneuver Microsoft very quickly. Time will tell when or if that happens.

Meanwhile, Google will have to work hard to revive the idea of internet browsing. It will also look to integrate more AI features into services other than search, just like Microsoft did. Indeed, the AI war between Google and Microsoft will get heated up more in the coming days.

Source: New York Times