Google LLC is reportedly scrambling to launch new, artificial intelligence-powered features and capabilities in its search engine at a time when its bread-and-butter business is facing its most serious threat in years.

The company is said to be working on an all-new, AI-powered search engine, and also looking at updating its existing search technology with AI features. The updates are Google’s response to a suggestion by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. that it might drop Google Search and make Microsoft Bing the default search tool on its mobile devices, the New York Times reported today.

The Times said the potential loss of Samsung could cost Google more than $3 billion in revenue per year. As a result, the suggestion reportedly caused widespread “panic” inside Google, forcing the company to race to keep up with the explosion of interest in technologies such as ChatGPT.

According to internal emails obtained by the Times, Google’s response is to update its search engine as part of a project called “Magi.” It’s said that Google has about 160 employees working in “sprint rooms” to add new, AI-powered features to Google Search.

Google has reportedly been in a frenzy since last December, when executives first realized the significance of OpenAI LP’s ChatGPT and how it could pose a challenge in search. The threat to Google’s decades-long dominance of the search industry only increased in February, when Microsoft Corp. announced plans to integrate ChatGPT with Bing. Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai has responded by promising to add new AI chat features to Google Search soon.

Some of the new features Google is working on include a new service that will attempt to anticipate what users are looking for, before they search, as part of a “more personalized” experience. The Times said Google’s project has no clear timetable, so it’s not clear when the features might be launched.

Other new additions in the pipeline are said to be in various stages of development and include a Chrome feature called “Searchalong” that would scan the web page the user is reading to offer contextual information. So if the user is looking for a place to stay on Airbnb, they could ask about things to see and do near that location. The company is also working on a chatbot that will be able to answer software engineering questions and generate snippets of code. A second chatbot would help people search for music. There are more experimental features in the pipeline too, such as “GIFI” and “Tivoli Tuto,” which would make it possible to prompt Google Image Search to generate images and converse with a chatbot in a new language.

It’s notable that many of these features aren’t entirely original, though. For instance, image generation is already a feature in Slides, while Tivoli Tutor sounds a lot like Duolingo Inc.’s learning app.

Analyst Charles King of Pund-IT Inc. said Google’s panic and its apparent rush to improve its search engine’s capabilities highlights how broken the ad-based search model has become. “Once upon a time, a search engine’s value was based on the quality of results it delivered, but today it’s likely that the top five or ten results you see for any given search will consist of sponsored ad links from some commercial entity,” he said.

It could well result in some improved search capabilities that benefit all internet users. King said he would be surprised if Google wasn’t able to deliver new AI-based tools that are at least equal to, if not better than Microsoft’s.

“That said, the history of the tech industry is littered with stories of once-unstoppable firms that were undermined by more nimble and advanced competitors,” King said. “Remember when Microsoft Explorer dominated the browser market to the point that the company was successfully challenged on anti-trust grounds? Then along came Google Chrome. Maybe this is just the latest tale of ‘what goes around, comes around'”.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. was more optimistic, saying Google’s plan to develop an entirely new search engine based on generative AI makes sense, as incremental innovation may only get it so far on the way to next generation search. “At the same time, the coming reported updates are a good move as they can hedge against Microsoft Bing’s new AI capabilities,” the analyst said. “Though Google will in any case need to be cautious, as the verdict is still out on whether or not generative AI can really improve search experiences.”

The Times said Google is planning to announce Magi next month before following up with additional new features in fall. Such a timeline suggests more about Magi could be revealed at Google’s I/O 2023 event on May 10. Google is reportedly planning to offer Magi’s features to an initial testbed of 1 million people, before expanding availability to 30 million users by the end of the year. Magi will be made available exclusively in the U.S. first of all.

In a statement, Google refused to address the claims made by the Times directly but said it has already been integrating AI capabilities within Google Search for years, with features such as Lens and multisearch, for example.

“We’ve done so in a responsible and helpful way that maintains the high bar we set for delivering quality information,” a Google spokesperson said. “Not every brainstorm deck or product idea leads to a launch, but as we’ve said before, we’re excited about bringing new AI-powered features to Search, and will share more details soon.”

Photo: Sarah Blocksidge