New Data Shows Google is Still Dominating the Search Market Despite Competing with Several AI Search Engines

New data by Datos’ clickstream panel analyzed by Sonata Insights and shared Sparktoro shows that there was a 1.3% growth on Google from May 2023 to May 2024. This means that Google experienced more desktop visits in May 2024 as compared to May 2023. This data seems surprisingly good because everyone thought that the rise in AI search engines will impact Google search but this doesn't seem to be the case.

There are many AI models that users treat as search engines like Microsoft’s CoPilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Among these AI search engines, Perplexity was the largest search player with 42% growth from last year. Rand Fishkin, who covered all this data in detail, said that Google has 290 times more search users than Perplexity as of May 2024. Perplexity users are 7.5% as active on the platform as Google users are on Google.

This suggests that even with numerous AI models and search engines, Google is still doing well in search market share. On the other hand, ChatGPT had 10.40 web page visits per month per visitor on average in May 2023 but that increased to 14.68 visits in May 2024. Claude jumped from 6.39 webpage visits per month in June 2023 to 10.67 visits in May 2024.

The data also shows that Google is way larger than other platforms in terms of search activity. Followed by Google are YouTube, Amazon and Bing but they are way lower than Google. So, this means that even if there are many AI search engines being introduced, it will be hard to dominate Google. Users aren't going to stop using Google and it shows through Google’s search market.

Read next: These Are The World’s Most Visited Websites In 2024
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Reddit Posts Q2 Performance Report For 2024 With Steady Rise In Revenue And Users Amid Tests For AI Search

Reddit just rolled out its latest performance report for 2024. The company delineated a steady growth in users and revenue for the second quarter.

Additionally, Reddit spoke about seeing growth in different markets. This is all related to its keen interest in adopting new technology and delivering better returns on advertising.

For starters, Reddit’s stats included 8.5 million more users during this time, hitting the 91.2 DAU (daily active users) mark. This is a great rise as the growth was coming from both American and global markets.

Several social media platforms witnessed similar growth in developing countries but when it comes to the US and EU, it fell short. The former and latter are the biggest markets for spending on social media ads. This is why seeing Reddit expand its reach in these markets is a good sign of growth.

As per experts, expanding in both markets of the world is a great sign for more growth in the future.

As far as its figures for average users every week were concerned, Reddit stood at 342 million during Q2. This was a 57% growth from 2023, marking another significant gain for the company.

When you come to think of it, Reddit is seeing a fourfold growth in users every week, similar to what it sees each day. This is much higher than any social media platform’s average and can be thought of as like 2:1 ratio.

The company’s audience is more transitory in nature. By this, we mean users who check subreddits less often. Therefore, the app could give rise to a bigger and better outreach than what’s suggested here for daily users. This is where advertisers might benefit.

Moving on to revenue. Reddit recorded $281 million for the second quarter which is a 54% growth from the previous year. On that note, Reddit claims that it’s close to double the figures seen in 2023 with great improvements to advertising products and more emphasis on SMBs. this could assist in getting more ads.

The company also made headlines for its plans to introduce more Generative AI. Thanks to Memorable AI, Reddit’s partners will benefit from greater ad performance. But it’s not just ads that are making headwaves. The company’s ‘other’ category for revenue saw the arrival of $28 million which is a massive 690% growth YoY.

The news comes as Reddit gears up to introduce more AI projects and use large language models. At the moment, its prices for API access are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, it’s garnering more partnerships with different companies such as Google to better revenue opportunities.

We similarly saw the company raise concerns when it prevented other search engines from crawling its pages. In response to that, Reddit says that this past quarter was all about greater protection and control of its content.

It wished to restrict access to web crawlers and explore more options for licensing partnerships and better financial opportunities. To put it simply, the platform is looking out for its best interests. Anyone planning on scraping data online from its pages for free will no longer be allowed to do so.

If you ask us, Reddit’s report card displays great promise and potential for the future. It hopes to better usage and revenue options with time. This combined with the rollout of AI summaries to its Search pages will assist in exploring more communities.

So if you’re an avid Reddit user, be ready to see greater AI features as that’s currently trending on the app’s radar.

Read next: The Truth About Google’s Market Power: New Research Unveils Its Stranglehold on Vertical Searches!
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

The Truth About Google’s Market Power: New Research Unveils Its Stranglehold on Vertical Searches!

Google’s dominance in the search engine sector has long drawn scrutiny from regulators, legal experts, and industry players. While it's widely acknowledged that Google commands a substantial portion of the general search market, the tech giant contends it faces fierce competition from specialized search engines tailored to specific needs. A recent study sheds light on this claim by examining Google’s market share within these vertical segments.

With a staggering revenue of $307 billion in 2023, Google’s search engine remains its one of the most lucrative asset, generating billions of dollars. Regulatory bodies argue that Google’s overwhelming presence in the general search market, where it contends with competitors like Microsoft Bing and DuckDuckGo, borders on monopolistic behavior. Google, however, insists it competes against a variety of specialized search engines, such as Amazon for shopping, Kayak for travel, and OpenTable for dining.

Researchers from institutions including the University of Zurich and Northeastern University undertook an empirical analysis to validate Google's assertions. Using data from U.S. residents’ web browsing activities over five months in 2020, they scrutinized search behaviors across Google, Bing, and various vertical search engines.

Searches were classified into 90 distinct verticals, covering areas like Shopping, Health, and News. The study aimed to determine Google’s true market share in these specific segments, assessing whether users viewed Google Search and specialized engines as interchangeable.

The study found that Google’s products dominate in 21 of the top 30 vertical markets, capturing over 50% of searches. These markets alone account for 94.1% of all search activity. Notably, users initiated more than half of their search sessions on Google’s platforms in 24 segments, underscoring Google's role as a primary entry point for online searches.

Despite Google's claims, the study indicates users do not see Google Search and vertical search engines as direct substitutes. Even when utilizing vertical search engines, many sessions started with a Google product, highlighting Google’s significant influence in directing users to its vertical offerings.

These insights carry considerable weight in the context of antitrust litigation. The data suggests Google may be leveraging its dominance in the general search market to bolster its position in specific verticals. In the Travel segment, for instance, Google garnered 51% of the searches among participants, potentially skewing results in favor of Google Flights and Google Hotels.

Regulatory bodies have already targeted Google’s practices in vertical markets such as Shopping and Travel, leading to significant actions like the European Commission's penalties against Google Shopping. The study’s outcomes reinforce the call for continued regulatory oversight and the consideration of both structural and behavioral remedies. Proposed measures include separating Google Search from its vertical search engines and restricting exclusive contracts.

This comprehensive analysis of Google’s market share in vertical search segments offers fresh perspectives on the digital search landscape. It challenges Google’s narrative of facing substantial competition from specialized search engines, highlighting the necessity for rigorous regulatory measures to address Google’s market power. As the debate over Google’s influence continues, this research provides critical data for shaping future antitrust policies and ensuring a competitive digital marketplace.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: 

• AI Development Needs Double Microsoft's Electricity Use Between 2020 and 2023

• Security Experts Raise Alarm Against New PromptWare GenAI Threat

• CreatorIQ’s Report Shows Insights About How To Win Customers on TikTok
by Asim BN via Digital Information World

CreatorIQ’s Report Shows Insights About How To Win Customers on TikTok

CreatorIQ recently conduced research with TikTok to find out how brands are doing marketing on TikTok and which brands are seeing the most success. The full report talks about how brands should collaborate with content creators to achieve more engagements and customers. According to the analysis, 55% of TikTok users say that they are more likely to trust brands if a content creator is talking about them, rather than seeing brands on ads on their feeds.

The analysis shows that brands should work more with content creators but not all content creators can help brands grow. CreatorIQ says that content creators should have consistency to win customers’ trust. If a content creator talks about a brand just for a few days, not many users show interest in buying the product. But if the creator talks about a brand for months or even years, then users are more likely to buy the product.

This means that brands should do long term partnership with content creators if they want to attract more customers. It is also best if brands research about creators who align with the brand’s interests. Engagement rates play an important role in spreading a brand’s message. Based on Earned Media Value (EMV), beauty and fashion are most popular on TikTok. The beauty and fashion brands should work harder to advertise on TikTok as it is a key to attract many customers in this category.

CreatorIQ’s report also talks about top 100 brands on TikTok which can help in providing insights about how to approach the platform and which categories can help brands. Amazon is the most popular brand on TikTok, followed by NBA, NFL and Sephora.

Read next: Report Shows Many Businesses Are Quick in Implementing AI But They Are Struggling to Scale It
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

New Report Confirms Israeli Army Is Using Big Tech’s Help To Commit More War Crimes In Gaza

A recent investigation by +972 Magazine, published on August 5, reveals troubling insights into the collaboration between the Israeli military and major technology firms. The report alleges that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are utilizing cloud storage and artificial intelligence services from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to support military operations in the Gaza Strip. This usage has raised significant concerns about potential war crimes.

Colonel Racheli Dembinsky of the IDF publicly confirmed on July 10 that the military relies on these tech giants for cloud storage and AI capabilities. At a conference titled “IT for IDF” in Rishon Lezion, Dembinsky outlined how Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides the IDF with substantial storage capacity, enabling the retention of extensive intelligence data on individuals in Gaza.

This intelligence is reportedly used in targeting operations, including airstrikes and assassinations, which have led to numerous civilian casualties. Since October 7, Israeli airstrikes have reportedly claimed tens of thousands of lives in Gaza, with a significant portion being women and children.

The need for advanced cloud services emerged as the conflict intensified. Initially, the IDF managed intelligence through its own servers. However, the scale of recent operations required greater storage and processing power, driving the military to adopt cloud-based solutions to handle the growing volume of data, including billions of audio files.

The partnership between Israel and the tech companies began in 2021 with the initiation of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with Google and Amazon. This agreement allowed various Israeli government agencies to migrate non-classified data to the cloud and benefit from the sophisticated services offered by these companies. Data centers established by Google and Amazon in Israel in 2022 and 2023 further facilitated secure information storage during ongoing military operations.

Since October 2023, the collaboration under Project Nimbus has expanded. The tech companies now provide data storage and AI services to military units managing classified information, reflecting an increased reliance on these technologies during wartime.

The flexibility of cloud services has proven invaluable for the military. By leveraging these technologies, the IDF can rapidly scale its storage and processing capabilities to meet operational demands. This scalability allows for the quick collection and analysis of extensive data, which is crucial for effective targeting and intelligence gathering.

One application used by the military, known as MapIt, enables real-time tracking and marking of targets. This tool overlays potential targets on interactive maps, illustrating the breadth of surveillance and targeting efforts.

Critics, such as Tariq Kenney-Shawa from the Palestinian think tank Al-Shabaka, have raised concerns about the involvement of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. They argue that the tech companies are not merely facilitators but are actively participating in the military operations by providing the tools used in these genocidal actions.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: Mobile Use Soars: 98% Adults, 90% Kids; Children Dominate Tablets, Consoles
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

New Blow For OpenAI As Top News Publishers Block Newly Launched SearchGPT

It has only been one week since we saw the launch of SearchGPT from OpenAI.

However, things don’t seem to be going as planned. The company is facing a huge blow after some major news publishing websites have opted to block the tool from crawling their web pages.

The list entails 13 top news sites including the New York Times who have taken part in this block of the company’s web crawler (AKA OAI-SearchBot). Furthermore, the latter is designed to index data so that OpenAI can retrieve it and display accurate results linked to its users having SearchGPT.

OriginalityAI tracks all of the related materials and found that 14 out of the top 1000 publishers blocked OAI-SearchBot. Meanwhile, other publications present on the list included Wired, Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, and The New Yorker.

It’s all quite head-scratching, as per the CEO of Originalityai. Why would a publisher end up blocking it when, at the end of the day, publishers need traffic?

As revealed by OpenAI, SearchGPT stressed that the OAI-SearchBot doesn’t crawl for data collection on the web to train AI models. Instead, it’s designed for website owners to enable them to try the latest bot and ensure the page pops up across search results.

Without access to crawlers on websites, the SearchGPT offering from OpenAI risks its competence. After all, it’s competing with the likes of Google. There’s a complete lack of trust and more doubts related to search traffic here, it appears.

Meanwhile, another web crawler such as OpenAI ends up scooping online data for the sake of training AI. Many websites end up blocking the bot. And when we think about it, this makes sense. You want more traffic coming from top search engines but you don’t wish to give away any data for AI training of models that would compete against you.

For so long, OpenAI has been busy taking part in user data collection without attaining consent. It might be that publishers don’t trust the company when it claims that it won’t suck up their written material for the sake of training data.

Search results don’t always direct users to the websites used for creating the original content. A giant chunk of the goal is related to these latest AI search engines keeping users glued for a while by displaying summaries. If the publisher isn’t seeing a huge figure for traffic from search engines, then why bother enabling these web crawlers in the first place?

Experts also note how the ChatGPT maker has been busy cutting out deals related to publishers using content archives. It almost looks like this was done intentionally: first, get close to publishers by signing partnership deals, and then roll out the massive SearchGPT initiative.

We must add that seeing The New York Times here is a little astonishing. The latter has already rolled out a few lawsuits against OpenAI and its biggest software giant investor Microsoft. They have gone on to allege that the tech giants are working illegally to use their content to produce competing products.

For those who might not be aware, The New York Times does not authorize using its content for Generative Search or training of AI models without any form of consent being taken. This is even though we do or don’t block any bot from carrying out crawling of content online.

As part of its complaints against the company, the NYT says it’s noticing how many search engine giants are turning out to be more powerful in regards to AI and siphoning traffic that comes from these publishing sites.

Other mentions in the complaint include how defendants continue to make use of Microsoft’s Bing Search Index, which categorizes online material to produce responses that entail excerpts and a detailed summary of the Times articles that are much longer and detailed than those returned by classic search engines.

By giving out Times content without any permission taken, the defendant's tools undermine and cause damage to the relationship with its reader and deprive them of licenses, subscriptions, and ads, not to mention revenue attained through affiliates.

Read next:

• OpenAI Creates New Tool That Catches Students Cheating On Assignments With ChatGPT

• Elon Musk Called Out For Pushing False Narratives About X’s Success Again
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Report Shows Many Businesses Are Quick in Implementing AI But They Are Struggling to Scale It

Cognizant, an IT consultancy, and Oxford Economics released a survey that found that even though many businesses want to implement generative AI as soon as possible, they are struggling to scale it. The survey shows that 70% of companies are worried that they are not implementing AI as fast as they should while 82% of companies believe that if they delay in implementing AI, they will not be able to compete with other companies which have already implemented AI.

The survey was a part of a report released earlier this year which was about the spread of generative AI and its effects on jobs. The report predicted that 13% of businesses are going to adopt AI in the next three to four years with 46% businesses doing so in the next decade. Many businesses and companies are already investing big on AI infrastructure. Cognizant itself invested $1 billion on AI tech which will be spent in the upcoming three years.

SVP and global practice head of AI and analytics at Cognizant, Naveen Sharma says that companies are already facing hurdles in scaling AI. If they want to ensure the correct implementation of AI, it is important that they know their data foundation and which tech stack is needed for it. Many businesses are just thinking of adding a chatbot as an AI tool for their employees but for most companies, this isn't going to work. They should re-imagine business processes to make the impact of AI implementation faster.

Read next: New Study Claims Using Labels Like ‘Artificial Intelligence’ Could Unintentionally Hurt Companies’ Sales

• 100 Million Americans to Use Generative AI by End of 2024: New Report
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World