The battle for internet search
Will the AI chatbots eat Google’s lunch?
For more than 25 years, search engines have been the internet’s front door. AltaVista, the first site to allow searches of the full text of the web, was swiftly dethroned by Google, which has dominated the field in most of the world ever since. Google’s search engine, still the heart of its business, has made its parent, Alphabet, one of the world’s most valuable companies, with revenues of $283bn in 2022 and a market capitalisation of $1.3trn. Google is not merely a household name; it is a verb.
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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “The battle for search ”
Leaders February 11th 2023
- The battle for internet search
- The devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria might upend politics, too
- Arab petrostates must prepare their citizens for a post-oil future
- How to promote academic freedom in America
- Cold-war lessons from China’s spy balloon
- The humbling of Gautam Adani is a test for Indian capitalism
From the February 11th 2023 edition
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