Samsung considers using Microsoft’s Bing on Galaxy phones

Generative AI technology, widely known through the U.S. open-source AI Chat GPT, is creating a seismic shift in the IT ecosystem. Experts say that the alliance between Samsung Electronics and Google on ‘search service’ for the last 13 years would change. Cloud services and social media companies are expanding their business to generative AI.

The New York Times reported on Sunday (local time) that Samsung Electronics is considering replacing Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on its devices. NYT said that the “Samsung threat represented the first potential crack in Google’s search business.”

Samsung has applied the Android OS on its smartphones launched in 2010 and Google’s search services as a default app. According to StatCounter, Google takes the top spot on the world’s search market with a 93% market share.

Things changed dramatically, however, as Open AI’s latest LLM GPT-4 was applied in Bing, Microsoft’s search service. Users are given the option of choosing a new and convenient provider over Google.

The IT industry predicts that Google’s number-one status in the market could be threatened earlier than expected. Google has launched Bard, its conversational AI service, to limited locations, including the U.S. and the U.K.

Reportedly, Samsung is considering varying options to collaborate with Google and MS. “Given Samsung’s long-standing cooperative ties with Google, it will not be easy to transfer entirely to MS,” said a source from the Korean IT sector. As Samsung pays an annual fee of 3 billion dollars to Google applying its search services on Galaxy smartphones, Samsung’s switch to a new search provider would have a considerable impact on Google’s sales as well.

Sensing urgency, Google is known to have launched several projects to apply AI features to its search service, including the Magi project, which involves 160 employees. Google aims to build a service that shows previous search results along with AI replies by next month. It also aims to acquire 30 million users by the end of the year.

Other high-tech U.S. companies are joining the Open AI bandwagon. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tesla CEO Elon Musk founded a company named X.AI Corporation in Nevada, the U.S. Musk is known to have recruited a professional that previously worked for AI company Deep Mind, raising assumptions that the new business would be dedicated to artificial intelligence.


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