The battle for technology leadership on the Internet has entered the next round since the introduction of the ChatGPT software. More and more companies are jumping into AI in the hope of boosting profits. According to some experts, they also have no choice.
The text robot ChatGPT from the US startup OpenAI writes essays, poems, speeches or lectures on command – in a matter of seconds. The program, which is fed with enormous amounts of data, has triggered a real hype in the technology industry. Within two months, the software cracked the 100 million active user mark, according to a study, faster than any other ever before.
„What’s revolutionary is the ease of use of ChatGPT. Artificial intelligence has never been easier to use,“ Alexander Brem, professor of entrepreneurship in technology and digitization at the University of Stuttgart, tells ntv.de. With the program, he said, a gateway to using AI has opened that he hasn’t seen since the invention of the Internet. „This can mutate into a full-blown revolution,“ Brem says.
More and more companies are now jumping on the topic of AI in the hope of bubbling profits. However, according to Andreas Moring, professor of innovation and AI at the International School of Management, the enormous success of ChatGPT has not triggered a „red alert“ among tech companies. After all, to improve their products, some corporations have been pouring large sums of money into AI research for years, he said.
ChatGPT’s push is nonetheless „momentum,“ in his estimation. „The media publicity surrounding the program is putting pressure on tech companies in particular that have not previously invested in AI,“ Moring says in an interview with ntv.de. These companies would now be forced to get on the same page and bring new products to market as quickly as possible.
AI has potential to break Google’s dominance
The fact that the battle for technology leadership has long since opened up is shown by the mass of companies that are now pouncing on AI. Microsoft has not only invested heavily in the chatGPT developer OpenAI, but also wants to integrate the bot into its Office applications and the so far rather unsuccessful search engine Bing. According to experts, the software company could thus become a threat to the top dog Google.
Google, in turn, countered just a few days later with its AI Bard, which is soon to be integrated into its own search engine. Chinese companies have also long since entered the race for AI: Among others, the Chinese search engine operator Baidu announced a ChatGPT-like project called Ernie.
In Internet search, Google has so far enjoyed a lead that for a long time seemed unassailable. But AI has the potential to break this dominance. Google’s dominance is also in jeopardy because AI applications like ChatGPT will change search behavior.
„When we search for information on travel, politics, business, sports or history, for example, we no longer want a pure collection of links like Google has today. An organized overview text is much better and faster for us to grasp there,“ Moring says. This could become a problem for Google and cost it market share. The traditional presentation will only remain the standard for targeted searches, for example, if we want to buy something specific and are looking for the best provider.
The advances of quite a few tech companies are not surprising. After all, companies that do not invest in AI now will sooner or later no longer be competitive, according to Moring. Competitive and cost pressures are too high for that, he says. „The use of AI offers companies an extreme cost advantage, which companies can pass on to the market via cheap prices and thus outcompete competitors,“ Moring says.
Companies have no choice at all
Other industries have long since recognized this. It’s not just large U.S. tech corporations that are betting on the potential of AI. With applications in logistics, industrial production, mechanical engineering, or energy generation, traditional German SMEs are also already relying on the technology of the future. „Unlike crypto, NFTs or the metaverse, AI is a universal technology that can be used for more or less everything,“ says Moring.
Companies that have little or no expertise in this area also benefit from the fact that there is now something akin to „AI off the shelf“. „In the future, it will be much easier for small companies to use AI, too, because they won’t have to program and train it themselves.“
Quite a few companies also have no choice, given the shortage of skilled workers and an aging society. After all, if they can’t find qualified personnel, they often have only one option left: they have to automate processes or let intelligent machines do the work that was previously done by humans. Companies will soon no longer even have a choice as to whether or not they want to use AI. „Demographic change will once again be a real driver for the automation of processes in companies,“ Moring is certain.