Google has rolled out a bunch of generative AI features for its Performance Max ad platform. The launch comes a few weeks after Meta released (much) the same tool trio allowing advertisers to create visuals and multiple versions of ad text using AI. Internet’s blue-eyed boy OpenAI has also unleashed its latest AI model, GPT-4 Turbo. 

All these moves hint at Google’s position in the market – a mere runner up struggling to regain its lost glory in tech.

This is not the first case of Google releasing an identical product right after a competitor releases their version first. This was also reflected in the hasty introduction of its AI chatbot Bard, after OpenAI took everyone by storm with ChatGPT last November.

OpenAI’s product caused Google to issue Code Red. The search giant also combined with its sister companies Brain and DeepMind to build the next big thing in AI. They even turned to the company’s founder Sergey Brin who started lurking at the company headquarters to help them build Gemini.

While the project under construction has made it to headlines very often over the recent past, no particular timeline has been issued for the release of the AI model, nor has there been any substantial information about the tool yet. 

Mad Ad Lads 

The recent moves by both the tech companies shows their confidence in generative AI’s potential to assist brands and enterprises that constitute a major chunk of their revenue streams. Both Meta and Google have been heavily dependent on their advertising vertical of the business for earnings. 

In the latest earning report, Google chief Sundar Pichai emphasised on how ads will ‘play an important role’ in the new search experience, which the company is currently betting big on with generative AI. Notably, for his company, out of the $76.69 billion revenue for Q3, the advertising business accounted for $59.65 billion.

Notably, the Mark Zuckerberg company’s digital ad revenue increased 12% in the quarter ended June 30, driving its share price to an 18-month high. Meta also predicted as much as 20% sales growth in the period that ended in September, driven by spending on AI, revenue from short-form video known as Reels and improvements in ad targeting.

Even Meta’s generative AI attempts to boost its revenue through ads appears to be working in favour of the company which has sidelined its Metaverse. Previously in May, the company also introduced Meta Lattice, to help businesses predict the performance of ads. Similar updates for advertisers is expected as the company has officially stated there are more AI features to come. 

Google is an NPC

Google has too much institutional history to just roll over but in recent years the company appears to have fallen behind in its agenda to keep up with the human mimicking technology. One summer, the company spent dealing with the ‘Is LaMDA sentient?’ drama and the next summer it lost $102 billion in market value after Bard answered a basic general knowledge question inaccurately during the live public demo. 

The company, which is a household name on the internet, has been scrambling to play catch up in delivering AI products. Another issue it has been dealing with is that of its talent migrating to build their own startups as they found it difficult to pitch their billion dollar ideas to the upper management of Google. 

Google has been trying to revive its search engine and voice assistant with generative AI but has not been able to deliver up to the mark results as of now. Even though Pichai has not missed a chance to call Google an ‘AI-first’ company, his actions speak otherwise. 

As Google continues to integrate AI in every nook and cranny of its business, it is a wait and watch scenario since it is too early to know whether the company will benefit from the technology. While the company is going all in on the generative AI wave, the much-anticipated Gemini will be the deciding factor of its dependency on the technology.