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the point where, in 2024, it still holds more than 80 per cent of the global market share of all search engines. The total number of searches per day on Google reaches an average of 8.5 billion, with more than 99,000 queries recorded per second. With its uncluttered interface and powerful algorithm, Google has a real monopoly on the market and it maintains this through innovation and start-up acquisitions. A similar logic could apply to AI interfaces, even if they are already configured for slightly different uses, in relation to text or image generation unprecedented success in its adoption, to the point of destabilising the current tech giants. Competitors such as Google, with its Gemini project, are launching their own chatbots in reaction to the lead taken by ChatGPT in full knowledge that there is a premium on entering the market first. This tension is heightened by the fact that it is not just a question of competition between AI chatbots, but also the impact AI will have. This is applicable not only to search engines, but also the myriad other ways in which the resources of the web will be used by an ever-increasing proportion of the world’s population – it is estimated that more than five billion people, or two‑thirds of the world’s population, used the internet last year. AWAITING THE EMERGENCE OF AN AI LEADER for example. Designed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022, the ChatGPT chatbot is enjoying Given the economic properties that are often specific to digital technologies, such as network externalities and switching costs, the phenomenon could be reproduced at the level of AI interfaces, especially as the latter are also based on self-reinforcing phenomena that are sometimes intrinsic.
Indeed, the more users and queries there are on ChatGPT, the more its algorithm continues to self-train. This is without considering the fact that ChatGPT runs on a model that has been pre-trained on a huge corpus of 500 billion textual data with different types of learning. Continuing to train on the queries of almost 180 million monthly active users is, therefore, a decisive advantage in establishing itself on the market. Right now, ChatGPT’s market share among generative AI chatbots is estimated to be around 61 per cent, ahead of Microsoft Copilot’s 16 per cent and Google Gemini’s 13 per cent, according to SEO firm First Page Sage. All the signs point to the emergence of an AI leader. The substantial investment being made by nations and digital companies, the speed of adoption by the general public, the media hype and the promise of AI’s benefits in the collective imagination are all key factors for success. Even if
it also gives rise to reservations about ethics, intellectual property rights, or the exploitation of ‘click workers’, among others, AI is a veritable groundswell that will undoubtedly revolutionise our future daily lives. The only question that remains is how.
Sébastien Tran is dean of Audencia Business School in Nantes, France. Tran’s research focuses on the future of work and innovation management. He holds a doctorate in industrial economics from Paris Dauphine University and a degree in management science from the University of Rouen
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Business Impact • ISSUE 2 • 2024
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