Despite Microsoft’s introduction of generative AI into its search engine Bing, the corporate has failed to chop into the share of market chief Google.
According to the most recent numbers from market tracker StatCounter, Google’s market share of search within the United States in October was 88.1%, a slight enhance over its October share in 2022 of 86.75%.
Meanwhile, Bing’s market share for a similar interval declined from 7.4% in 2022 to 6.92% in 2023.
Third-place participant DuckDuckGo’s share additionally suffered a year-over-year decline from 2.34% to 1.91%.
Google’s search share was even stronger worldwide, garnering 91.55%, in comparison with Bing’s 3.11%.
Bing’s share of worldwide desktop searches was higher at 9.14%, though nonetheless dropping from 9.92% in 2022.
In worldwide cellular searches — the place Google has a dominant 94.93% place — Bing is ranked fourth (0.53%) behind Russian search engine Yandex (1.64%) and China’s Baidu (1.2%).
Search Engine Market Share Worldwide: October 2022 – October 2023
Source: StatCounter Global Stats
Microsoft’s Strategic Misstep in AI Deployment
When Microsoft introduced in February that it was incorporating AI into Bing, some tech pundits predicted the transfer would give the corporate the lever it had lengthy been looking for to pry some search market share from Google. Apparently, that hasn’t been the case.
A deployment choice by Microsoft might have contributed to its incapability to transform its early AI benefit into a bigger share of search, famous Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media, a information, commentary and evaluation web site, and a former contributing editor to Search Engine Land.
“Bing with ChatGPT was initially only available through the Edge browser,” he advised TechNewsWorld. “Microsoft thought it would be a way to get people to download Edge. They should have just made AI immediately available across browsers.”
“That’s part of it,” he continued. “The other part is people are habituated to Google. Pundits underestimate the power of inertia and habit.”
Microsoft’s integration of AI into Bing has not given it any substantial traction within the aggressive search market, noticed Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst at SmartTech Research in San Jose, Calif.
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“Despite advancements in AI algorithms, Bing struggles to compete with Google’s entrenched dominance,” he advised TechNewsWorld. “Users perceive Google’s search results as more accurate and pertinent, creating a challenge for Microsoft to attract and retain a significant user base.”
“The search engine arena is fiercely contested, and Google’s established user habits make it difficult for Bing’s AI enhancements to drive a notable shift in market share. Microsoft continues to grapple with the formidable task of altering user preferences in the face of Google’s search supremacy,” he added.
Google’s Dominance as an Entrenched Search Engine Vendor
Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst on the Enderle Group, an advisory companies agency in Bend, Ore., identified that Google is an entrenched vendor.
“It takes quite a bit to take down an entrenched vendor,” he advised TechNewsWorld. “People build up habits. They’re used to using Google.”
He defined that a considerable amount of advertising and marketing is required to displace an entrenched vendor. “You’ve got to make people dislike the tool they’re using because if the tool they’re using is good enough, they don’t care,” he mentioned.
“You’ve got to convince people not only that your tool is better, but you’ve got to convince them that what they’re using isn’t good enough,” he added.
Getting folks to make use of the brand new AI Bing offered them with a pair of challenges, he continued, transferring them to a brand new software after which inducing them to make use of AI.
“There’s a learning curve to doing AI right, and we’re talking about many people who couldn’t learn Boolean logic to do Google right,” he quipped.
“It’s a powerful platform, but it requires training to use it, and people don’t like to train,” he added.
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Enderle maintained that the separation between the place Bing needs to be as a way to pull and maintain market share from Google and the place it’s vital.
“Microsoft needed to go farther with generative AI so you could just ask it a question verbally and get the curated response you want,” he mentioned. “That wasn’t what was brought out, and the result was not as many people gravitated to it as Microsoft thought they would.”
Antitrust Trials and Tribulations
If AI can’t enhance the search share of Google’s rivals, then perhaps the courtroom system can. Two antitrust trials are at present difficult the search chief’s alleged monopolistic practices.
In San Francisco, a trial is underway to settle a lawsuit filed by Epic Games, the studio behind the favored recreation Fortnite, towards Google for antitrust points associated to in-game cost processing on the Google Play platform. The case alleges that Google has created an unlawful monopoly on Android apps primarily to spice up its income via commissions starting from 15% to 30% on purchases made inside an app.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of Justice and Google are wrangling in a courtroom over alleged antitrust violations by the search chief. The DOJ contends Google:
Uses exclusionary agreements and practices to dominate the search engine market, comparable to requiring its search to be the default on Android units;
Uses its search dominance to present its personal companies an illegal benefit over rivals;
Suppresses competitors in promoting expertise markets via exclusionary conduct; and
Stifles competitors and harms shoppers via much less selection, decrease high quality, and better costs for on-line companies.
Will Legal Cases Affect Google’s Search Supremacy?
If Google loses the DOJ case, will its search share be affected?
“If the default search relationships are ended, that may not have a material impact on Google. People will continue to use it,” Sterling mentioned.
“The ad-side may offer more significant options for the court,” he continued. “Right now, there aren’t a lot of things that the court can do on the consumer side to affect Google usage.”
What the courtroom decides to be a treatment for Google’s monopolistic practices will decide if there’s any change in the established order, Enderle added.
“If it’s just a monetary hit that Google can afford, there’ll be no difference,” he mentioned. “But if it’s a huge monetary hit — as we saw when the EU hit Microsoft with billion-dollar fines — Google may change right away.”