Summarised by Centrist
Several contenders in the artificial intelligence (AI) space are “positioning themselves for a titanic showdown over who will answer the world’s questions.”
Axios writers Scott Rosenberg and Ina Fried argue that, after two decades of Google’s supremacy following “the great search wars”, tech’s heaviest hitters are positioning themselves for nothing short of an “AI war”.
They point to various examples of AI companies vying for dominance in the market: ChatGPT’s ascension, supported by Microsoft; the somewhat underwhelming performance of voice assistants like Siri and Amazon’s Alexa; and the upcoming release of a new voice-assistant iteration of ChatGPT this month are just a few.
Apple showcased a new version of Siri, describing the upgrade as a “brain transplant” for Apple’s long-in-the-tooth voice assistant.
Both Apple and Microsoft are now valued at around $3t USD, partly due to the latter’s investment in AI-based projects.
Rosenberg and Fried write: “Google has owned this role in the digital universe for two decades, reaping a river of cash from monetizing users’ attention — but the rise of ChatGPT opened the door to change, and OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, is coming on strong.”
