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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has called for a revisit of Google’s dominant search engine market share, as generative AI tools fail to disrupt it.
While AI has brought with it many technological advances, the ACCC said its use by Google’s rivals has failed to shift users away from the top search engine and diversify.
“We are at a critical inflection point where generative AI tools are enabling technological innovations across a range of digital platform services. In general search, we are seeing Google Search, Microsoft Bing and new entrants launching or integrating AI-powered search features,” ACCC commissioner Peter Crone said.
“While it is too early to say with certainty, with [the] use of AI constantly developing, the impact of generative AI on market dynamics in general search appears limited so far.”
Crone acknowledges that AI is still in its infancy and its use by Bing and other rival search engines is still limited but is concerned about the lack of shift.
The ACCC report also notes that due to their “significant presence across the generative AI supply chain”, technological giants like Google and Microsoft are well equipped to reap the benefits of the technology in their search engines.
The ACCC also raised concerns about the downturn in search quality, particularly as search providers have an incentive to prioritise advertisements over real answers to boost revenue.
“It is important that consumers find information and answers they need quickly, however, search quality is difficult to measure because it means different things to different people,” said Crone.
“This report contributes to the ongoing discussion on search quality by examining a number of elements, including the prominence of ads, optimisation of webpages to improve their ranking by search engine algorithms, personalisation and diversity of results.”
Furthermore, the increasing amount of AI-generated content may have the effect of diluting the pool of results, making it harder to find quality search results.
“The possible proliferation of AI-generated content is another lens to look at search quality. While some consumers may find the generative AI search experience more useful and efficient, others may be concerned about the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated responses to search queries,” Crone said
The ACCC report comes as it begins conducting a five-year inquiry into the digital platform services market in Australia and how these services affect competition. This is its fifth report.
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