In a twist of partnership strategy, Microsoft has announced 🔎Bing as the default search engine in OpenAI's Chat GPT. Remember, it was only 3 months ago when Bing proudly integrated Chat GPT. So, who holds the user attention in this partnership? And what's their game plan?
💬 During Microsoft's today Build developer conference, it was announced that Bing will become the default search engine for ChatGPT. The AI chatbot will now provide "timelier and more up-to-date answers with access from the web,” including citations. Bing is rolling out to ChatGPT Plus users today and will soon be available to free users with a plugin.
But why veer from the previous distribution model where MSFT integrated GPT-4 into its search to boost its market share?
📊 Simply put, Chat GPT is outpacing Bing in popularity.
A stark contrast in #growth emerges if you look at SimilarWeb stats:
OpenAI: A huge leap from 1B to 1.8B monthly visits (+80%) from February.
Bing.com: A modest rise, from 1.1B to 1.3B monthly visits (+18%) from February, but actually a slight dip (-7%) from 1.4B in March.
Control of distribution in partnerships often indicates who's got the upper hand.
⚡️ In a recent interview with Patrick Collinson, CEO of Stripe, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, explained his '#platform plus killer app' strategy.
Altman said, "I am a believer as a business strategy in platform plus killer app. I think that's worked for a bunch of businesses over time for good reason. I think the fact that we're doing a consumer product is helping us make our platform much better. And I hope over time that we figure out how to have the platform make the consumer app much better too. So I think it's like a good cohesive strategy to do them together.”
This indicates we all may be engaging more with the ChatGPT product directly than initially anticipated.
However, OpenAI still has some catching up to do when it comes to the staggering usage of Microsoft products. There are 1.4 billion monthly active devices running Windows 10/11, many of which will soon have Windows AI co-pilots, as revealed in today’s conference.
Still, the question is - will there be a shift in the dynamics of this partnership?