Yahoo's search results are currently powered by Microsoft's Bing, and the company is evaluating its approach to this new era of search. Meanwhile, Perplexity, a gen AI search engine, plans to show a blend of AI and traditional results. The future of search engines will likely involve a mix of AI and traditional results, with the competition focusing on how well they can infer user intent and the balance between AI and traditional results.
Key takeaways:
- Major search engines, including Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft, are exploring the use of generative AI to respond to search queries, alongside traditional link-based results.
- The challenge for these companies is to accurately infer the intent of a user's query and decide whether to provide an AI-generated answer or a list of links. This decision also depends on the cost, as AI-generated answers are expensive to produce.
- Google is reportedly considering charging for generative AI results due to the high cost of production and the lack of a proven advertising business model for these types of results.
- Yahoo's search results are currently powered by Microsoft's Bing, and the company is evaluating its approach to this new era of search, considering all options and maintaining a deep partnership with Microsoft.