Microsoft's Bing Sees Modest Growth with ChatGPT Integration, But Google Still Leads the Search Market

When Microsoft Corp MSFT incorporated ChatGPT into its Bing search engine in February, the Street saw it as a potential game-changer for the search market. 

However, almost a year later, Bing’s global search market share has only marginally increased to 3.4%, despite the integration of OpenAI’s generative AI technology. 

Bing’s struggle for relevance since its 2009 launch hasn’t been significantly altered by AI integration, with the search engine experiencing a 33% decrease in usage time a month before the ChatGPT update, Bloomberg reports.

The integration did reverse this decline to some extent. In the U.S., monthly active users more than doubled in the second quarter of 2023, and by year-end, Bing’s monthly active users had steadily increased to 4.4 million. 

Microsoft continues to add AI tools to Bing, including the latest version of OpenAI’s image-generating model, DALL-E 3, which led to a tenfold increase in usage.

Also Read: Could Apple Replace Google With Its Own Search Engine… It May Be A Matter Of ‘When,’ Says Mark Gurman

Previous reports indicated that ChatGPT powered Bing’s struggle with current data.

Microsoft aimed to leverage the growing popularity of its OpenAI GPT-4 powered Bing search engine by introducing ads. 

Microsoft also focused on driving more traffic and revenue to publishers by exploring enhanced features. 

Additionally, Microsoft considered placing licensed content next to chat answers and integrating ads within the chat experience.

Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google, meanwhile, is developing its own AI tools, launching an experimental conversational response version of its search engine, and planning to integrate its large language model, Gemini. 

Despite Bing’s AI enhancements, Google retains a dominant market position with over 90% share and is the default search engine on Apple devices.

Adding AI to search engines signifies a belief in AI’s transformative potential for online information seeking. 

However, Bing’s incremental gains suggest that AI features alone may not be enough to challenge Google’s dominance significantly. 

Microsoft hopes generative AI will also impact how advertisers allocate their search spending, moving away from the traditional costs-per-click model.

Price Action: MSFT shares traded higher by 0.85% at $392.78 on the last check Thursday.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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