alt Hacker NewsMost analysts seem to forget what actual consumers do. Normal people use ChatGPT. They accidentally use Gemini when they Google something. But I don’t know anyone non-technical who has ditched ChatGPT as their default LLM. For 99% of questions these days, it’s plenty good enough—there’s just no real reason to switch.
OpenAI's strategy is to eventually overtake search. I'd be curious for a chart of their progress over time. Without Google trying to distort the picture with Gemini benchmark results and usage stats which are tainted by sheer numbers from traditional search and their apps.
Replies
> usage stats which are tainted by sheer numbers from traditional search and their apps.
You're looking at this backwards. Being able to push Gemini into your face on Gmail, Gdocs, Google Search, Android, Android TV, Android Auto and Pixel devices sure is: Annoying, disruptive and unfair. But market-wise., it sure is a strength, not a weakness.
Yes and more normal people use Google - that is the default search engine for Android and iOS. AI overviews and AI mode just have to be good enough to cause people not to switch.
Google’s increasing revenues and profits and even Apple hinting at they aren’t seeing decreased revenue from their affiliation with Google hints at people not replacing Google search with ChatGPT.
Besides end user chatbot use is just a small part of the revenue from LLMs.
I don't think that's a distorted picture at all. Google is still handling billions of searches per day. A huge number of those include AI answers. To all those billions of people who still reach for the omnibar first, Gemini is becoming their LLM of first resort.
> But I don’t know anyone non-technical who has ditched ChatGPT as their default LLM.
Google are giving away a year of Gemini Pro to students, which has seen a big shift. The FT reported today[0] that Gemini new app downloads are almost catching up to ChatGPT
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/8881062d-ff4f-4454-8e9d-d992e8e2c...
I like Google Search for simple searches and still use it all the time. But for "complex" searches that are more like research, ChatGPT is actually pretty good, and provides actual, working links whereas Gemini seems to hallucinate more (in my experience).
We can see what consumers do. The Gemini app is second most downloaded app for the iPhone, right behind OpenAI. Apple is certainly not trying to "distort the picture" as you evidently wish to believe that Google is doing.
That's hardly an indication that actual "non-technical" consumers don't care, or that there is any sort of barrier to either using both apps or using whichever is better at the moment, or whichever is more helpful in generating the meme of the moment.
If it were actually true that OpenAI was "plenty good enough" for 99% of questions that people have, and that "there is no reason to switch" then OpenAI could just stop training new models, which is absurdly expensive. They aren't doing that, because they sensibly believe that having better models matters to consumers.