21 ms·

Technologically they may have caught up, but market wise they may have lost forever. In my country (and I think in many others), ChatGPT is already a household

• mprev 2y ago
  Isn’t this more like Teams vs Slack or Zoom? Consumer brand recognition isn’t the issue. Bundling with Workspace might be.
• j_maffe 2y ago
  Chatbots are not social media platforms. Also the vast majority of expected revenue from this industry is not from casual paying users, it's from other companies who will optimize for performance and price.
  • riku_iki 2y ago
    Chatbots are clear replacement for search with all implications and huge revenue for winner.
    • nukem222 2y ago
      How do you figure? Chatbots don't cite their sources (unless you explicitly set up an RAG); search engines do. What value does the former have? Chatbots seem more useful for stuff like generating filler and changing tone.
      • riku_iki 2y ago
        topic is revenue stream, so chatbots can become major revenue surface, and chatbot winner brand will get most revenue stream, while search engines will be just some switchable backend.
    • kridsdale1 2y ago
      Right. A few years from now these will all have figured out insidious ad insertion techniques and the economics will be very different.
  • bossyTeacher 2y ago
    That makes Google and Microsoft the winners then. It's not out yet but once Microsoft manages to fully catch to the state of the art in LLM, OpenAI wo't be needed and that will definitely be the final nail in the coffin for them
• stormfather 2y ago
  But Google is the household name. All they have to do is bring Gemini inside Google before people stop using traditional search.
  • browningstreet 2y ago
    They had that. Gemini was inside the Google app. Now it's its own app. So not sure how their thinking aligns with your suggestion.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • stormfather 2y ago
      Clearly they understand they need to integrate Gemini into search but it wasn't cheap or accurate enough yet. Do you really think THE search and AI giant is going to ignore AI search?
  • Andrew_nenakhov 2y ago
    Too bad Google managed to burn almost all goodwill they had 20 years ago. I am amoung many people who would use their AI products only as the last resort, just like I do with search and browsers.
    • coliveira 2y ago
      And this is correct, because if Google takes over AI, it will kill it just like they're killing search results. For Google, selling ads is THE most important thing, so they will relegate AI results to a little corner of the page where no-one will care about.
    • Spooky23 2y ago
      I have a colleague who is still pissed off about Google Reader. Nobody cares. The happy days of fun times with Google Labs in 2005 are the equivalent of my dad missing his 1965 Firebird when I was high school. 60% of the audience here doesn’t even know what you’re talking about. If you’re doing serious work in a fast mover space and are refusing to understand a major player, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.
• koakuma-chan 2y ago
  From my experience people use "ChatGPT" to refer to LLMs in general.
  • vosper 2y ago
    How many of those people are using an LLM other than one supplied by OpenAI?
    • selectodude 2y ago
      I do. "Claude" doesn't really tell people much. Anthropic, even less.
      • cruffle_duffle 2y ago
        Claude is an awful product name, too. I hate telling people that I generally use this thing called "Claude" which "is like ChatGPT but better".
    • koakuma-chan 2y ago
      I see what you're trying to say, but I've personally been warned many times by normies "do not use ChatGPT," as if it would be fine if I used Claude instead.
• therein 2y ago
  ChatGPT may be a household name but it is noticeably inferior. I haven't encountered a single ChatGPT subscriber that didn't cancel their OpenAI subscription in favor of a Claude or Grok one after a single session with them. ChatGPT is the most spineless chatbot out there. It stands for nothing, has no confidence in any claims it makes. It will apologize and backtrack on a whim. But with Claude and Grok, you can't just tell it it is wrong and get it to apologize. You actually have to have a point, the chatbot will defend its perspective if challenged without basis.
• HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  Teenagers are using Snapchat's "My AI", and have no idea that it's from OpenAI. I don't think people are using ChatGPT out of brand loyalty/preference as much as inertia - they stick to what they first tried unless given reason to switch. At the end of the day the money to be made from AI won't be $20/mo personal chatbot subscriptions, but corporate and app-integrated (e.g. Cursor) use where the usage is potentially far higher. Companies will chose their faceless AI provider based on cost and capability.
  • tehjoker 2y ago
    can confirm that when i wanted to try using deepseek inertia kept me using chatgpt for a few weeks longer
  • SunlitCat 2y ago
    Well, personally I started out with gemini (when it still was called bard or something like that) but switched over to a paid ChatGPT subscription.
    • HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
      That's an understandable switch, but I expect that if you were starting today with something much more capable, such as Gemini 2.0 Flash, or Anthropic's Claude, you'd probably find no reason to explore alternatives.
    • paul7986 2y ago
      As of now and past six to 8 months Im a happy GPT pro subscriber. I tried Gemini and asked it show images from Google images (a few weeks ago) of XYZ and pathetically it said it couldnt do it but GPT can. Rooting for GPT and hoping for a GPT phone where the lock screen is where you interface with your AI Assistant / Agent. It also interfaces with other AI Agents (businesses, family members, friends, etc) to get things done for you automagically. You can skin your AI Assistant / Agent to look like whoever you want.
  • skyyler 2y ago
    Are teenagers still using Snapchat? The teenagers that made the bulk of its users when it was new are in their late 20s now.
• rtkwe 2y ago
  There's a lot less network effects in the chatbot space. It doesn't really matter what your friends are using so it's way easier to get people to switch by being better. Not saying there's no benefit to ChatGPT's position but it's not like Google+ vs Facebook because they don't need spontaneous mass adoption to make it useful to people like they did with Google+.
  • crazygringo 2y ago
    For general knowledge questions, sure. But there are going to be huge network effects in terms of your personal data, which includes communications with friends. If you use Gmail/Google Calendar/Docs/Drive, and ChatGPT can't tell you anything, but Gemini helps you with all the data in your life... that's a gigantic network effect. Network effects aren't just about friends. They're about file formats, productivity suites, and ultimately compatibility.
    • rtkwe 2y ago
      That's a point in Google's favor but it's not really what "network effect" (traditionally) means. Network effect is a specific term about the increasing utility of a service as more people use compatible services, it's explicitly about users other than yourself. You're describing something more like having an integrated ecosystem a la Apple's walled garden where things work great with other Apple products (notification hand off etc).
    • nukem222 2y ago
      > but Gemini helps you with all the data in your life None of my data is in google's cloud (for obvious reasons) except gmail, which contains far less of my life than you might think. Most of my friends outside of work use icloud. google will need to figure out how to access other silos if they want their chatbot to move forward. Google has no access to what music I like, what movies I like, what books I read, who I am friends with and why, what values I have and why I pursue them. That's a rough place to start as this is the center of my personality. Gmail is google's ace in the hole. If they can't figure out how to exploit that gemini will just be the android version of siri (which is already the case, right?)
• rdtsc 2y ago
  > ChatGPT is already a household name, and nobody has even heard about Gemini. Just yesterday I polled my household, the 8 year old knew about ChatGPT and "China's R1". The teenager knew ChatGPT and Google's was a bit hard to remember but eventually they did remember "Gemini", however they didn't know about R1. Both kids consider Siri and Alexa in the same category for Apple and Amazon, respectively. They don't know what Meta/Facebook have at all.
• xnx 2y ago
  > This looks like the Google+ vs Facebook story all over again. Lock-in and network effects with social networks are very strong. Facebook, Twitter, and eBay only have to be good-enough. Lock-in and network effects with current AI tools is almost zero. People will readily switch to Gemini once they realize it can do their work better.
  • babelfish 2y ago
    > once they realize it can do their work better Citation needed? Google's Deep Research tool is considerably worse than OpenAI's (I haven't tried Perplexity or Groks). They don't have anything like Operator. I pay for Gemini and it's feature within the productivity suite almost never work the way I want them to. They can still win, but OpenAI is eating their lunch.
    • xnx 2y ago
      Probably varies with individual use case, but Gemini 2.5 currently #1 here: https://lmarena.ai/?leaderboard= https://lmarena.ai/?leaderboard=
  • famouswaffles 2y ago
    >Lock-in and network effects with current AI tools is almost zero. People will readily switch to Gemini once they realize it can do their work better. Lock-in for search engines should be near zero and yet people won't bother switching to or even trying potentially better options. At the end of the day, people don't leave what they are used to easily.
    • chubot 2y ago
      This is largely a browser UI and browser control issue though There’s a reason google pays both Apple and Mozilla billions to be the default on Safari and Firefox. And why MS makes its own browser, as a complement to its search engine So yeah I wonder if this same dynamic plays out for AI, or if something else happens. I guess Google hopes it will, and that’s one reason they show AI answers about the search results now
• kspacewalk2 2y ago
  Meh. There are no network effects, switching is 100% frictionless - compare and contrast with ditching Facebook and limiting facebook-ey social media interactions with whichever 1.5 of your friends are on Google+. Just the fact that it can read my emails and set reminders, while being broadly the same quality as ChatGPT, was enough for me to switch. I no longer pay for the pro, and hence can't use the integration features, but I just stuck to Gemini and almost never use ChatGPT anymore.
  • robocat 2y ago
    Network effects are not the only way people lock into a product - it is just the first thing that comes to most people's minds. Familiarity and trust are really important. Commonly called branding.
    • kspacewalk2 2y ago
      Familiarity and trust are really important when there's a cost to switching (buy this $35000 car or that one), when training is non-trivial, or when you have privacy concerns. I don't see that mattering at all when it comes to, say, ChatGPT vs Gemini. Google has a much more recognizable brand, the quality of the results and the interface itself are essentially identical, trust is not a factor at all (I assume both are collecting my data regardless of what they say).
• mattlondon 2y ago
  I am not convinced that many people outside of tech circles knows about ChatGPT. "AI" sure, but ChatGPT I am unconvinced. Either way, I am pretty confident Google will "win" long term since Gemini will be the AI built into search, YouTube, android, Gmail, chrome, etc etc in the consumer side. It's going to be there when the billions of people are using Google products so people will just use it there. The average person won't go out of their way to open a separate app/site with a lower-performing (as of today) and standalone/siloed/isolated AI that doesn't have access to their data/apps just because they recognise the name.
  • annodomini2019 2y ago
    ChatGPT is the 7th most visited website in the world...
  • mjamesaustin 2y ago
    My sister graduated college last summer. She said every single person she knew was using ChatGPT to write essays within a week of its initial release. I would argue it's pretty well-known outside of tech circles.
    • Nullabillity 2y ago
      That's exactly what a plagiarist would say to justify it to themself.
      • SR2Z 2y ago
        Plagarism is kind of the default nowadays in college though (I did not plagarize, but was a TA who caught a lot of it)
  • jeromegv 2y ago
    > I am not convinced that many people outside of tech circles In Canada, I have had countless conversations with people outside of tech circles (mostly in their 30s) where THEY naturally bring up ChatGPT. It's wild how popular it got very quickly for all kind of use cases.
• nukem222 2y ago
  [dead]
• basch 2y ago
  Chatbots are the beginning not the end. As it commoditizes, and chat becomes a feature of every interface, what will matter is who has the best overall design or suite of interfaces. Things like NotebookLM and whiteboards will be infinitely more useful than just a chat window. Chat alone doesn’t have the spatial organization of putting thoughts into a mind map or drawing.
• weatherlite 2y ago
  I don't buy this at all. People will use what works well and is cheap. ChatGPT was there first, but then DeepSeek came so everyone was excited about that and talking about that. Now Gemini 2.5 looks really really good, better than ChatGPT some say. This is going to increase Gemini usage for sure. I don't think ChatGPT has any moat here. No one does actually.
  • aurareturn 2y ago
    They have some moat. I'm not sure what it is. But they do. I've been a ChatGPT subscriber since the beginning. I've been a subscriber even though Sonnet 3.5 and others have surpassed GPT4o. I'm not sure why I don't switch. I think it's the combination of better UX (Claude has poor UX apps), cool interesting new features, and having (limited) access to the top models.
    • weatherlite 2y ago
      OK, I agree with this, they have a bit of a moat but nothing particularly strong. They definitely don't deserve a 130B valuation imo, I'm expecting subscription prices to be pushed down since everyone and his sister are going to offer similarly strong models.
      • aurareturn 2y ago
        I disagree. I think their valuation is justified. They're growing very fast. Subscription prices won't go down. If anything, they seem to be going up. I don't think having the smartest model or the model that is benching the best is going to knock ChatGPT out at this point. It's the whole thing. The function calling, the tool use, the ecosystem, etc.
        • weatherlite 2y ago
          > I don't think having the smartest model or the model that is benching the best is going to knock ChatGPT out at this point. It will be a question of price and performance. Many many companies aren't on board any A.I flow yet and they will need to choose what to do in the coming years. Those who chose OpenAI might stick regardless of what happens because it may be a hassle to switch but I kinda doubt its that sticky. It's not like moving clouds. And anyway we are really only in the beginning. OpenAI had a very nice head start which is over now, I will be very surprised if their market share doesn't drop significantly in the coming 2-3 years.
• Spooky23 2y ago
  Google is focused on enterprises. They’re like Apple where PR disasters hurt them — if your Google phone tells you to eat rocks or writes fanfic porn, that’s a huge deal. Consumer is a risk to them. ChatGPT and Grok are edgier and they are just burning cash - any attention is good. I wouldn’t underestimate them. Microsoft’s shitshow with Azure (they have like 9 different Azures) makes delivery difficult (some Azure clouds delayed AI tech for 6-9 months) when they are relying on constrained product from Nvidia. They also have some level of exposure to the OpenAI circus and its included Musk v. Sam Altman drama. Google has a much better supply chain and return on asset story, which is a big deal if you’re selling shovels.
  • thorncorona 2y ago
    I wouldn't underestimate Microsoft either. They are much more successful at enterprise than Google or ChatGPT, and are one of few companies to compete successfully in almost every tech vertical.
    • Spooky23 2y ago
      Agreed. But Microsoft is IBM. They are slow, and they have to herd a lot of cats with their enterprise customers, internal sacred cows, and partners. 3-4 years they’ll have the killer app for Office, then they rocket ship.
• matt_heimer 2y ago
  Google is so bad at marketing. Gemini should have be an internal only name. Google's ChatGPT should be branded as Google AI or GoogleGPT and it should be in the Google app. Google+ was particularly awful. They had to break the established search behavior of using + and - to indicate required and excluded terms. Now we have quotes for required and - for excluded? It should have been Google Social. The thing that is Google One would have been better often with the Google Plus name. Don't even get me started on Google Chat/Messenger....
  • pb7 2y ago
    Google's branding strategy historically has been terrible, I grant you that, but Gemini is not an example of it.
    • ludwik 2y ago
      Can you elaborate?
      • pb7 2y ago
        It's a great name. "G" matches the company, it's easy to say, it's a known word, it sounds good spoken, and the word itself has many subjective interpretations as to what it might mean (e.g. gemini = twins = you and AI). Same reason that it's Alexa and not Amazon Assistant, Siri and not Apple Assistant, etc. Google Pay/Android Pay/Google Wallet/Android Wallet/Pay Pay/Yap Yap should be the focus of our ire.
        • stalfosknight 2y ago
          Siri was not named by Apple. It was an independent app that Apple bought out in 2010.
          • WrongAssumption 2y ago
            Entirely irrelevant. They could have renamed it after buying it and chose not too.
• creato 2y ago
  I have family members that when they say "ChatGPT" they actually mean google's AI overview in the search results. The term ChatGPT might just be the Kleenex or Xerox of this market.
• Minor49er 2y ago
  Google+ was never really competing with Facebook. The goal of Google+ was to unite accounts between Google's services and to get people to provide their personal details such as their real full names. In that light, G+ was a success
• dyauspitr 2y ago
  There’s no lock in like in social networks. People will migrate to what is cheap and powerful.