Will Google Charge for AI Features? Of Course
July 2, 2024
Will AI spur Google to branch out from its ad-revenue business model? Possibly, Dataconomy concludes in, “AI Is Draining Google’s Money and We May Be Charged for It.” Writer Eray Eliaç?k cites reporting from the Financial Times when stating:
“Google, the search engine used by billions, is considering charging for special features made possible by artificial intelligence (AI). This would be different from its usual practice of offering most of its services for free. Here’s what this could mean: Google might offer some cool AI-driven tools, like a smarter assistant or personalized search options, but only to those who pay for them. The regular Google search would stay free, but these extra features would come with a price tag, such as Gemini, SGE, and Image generation with AI and more.”
Would Google really make more charging for AI than on serving up ads alongside it? Perhaps it will do both?
Eliaç?k reminds us AI is still far from perfect. There are several reasons he does not address:
- Google faces a challenge to maintain its ad monopolies as investigations into its advertising business which has been running without interference for more than two decades
- AI is likely to be a sector with a big dog and a couple of mid sized dogs, and a bunch of French bulldogs (over valued and stubborn). Google wants to be the winner because it invented the transformer and now has to deal with the consequences of that decision. Some of the pretenders are likely to be really big dogs and capable of tearing off Googzilla’s tail
- Cost control is easy to talk about in MBA class and financial columns. In real online life, cost control is a thorny problem. No matter how much the bean counters squeeze, the costs of new gear, innovation, and fixing stuff when it flames out over the weekend blasts many IT budgets into orbit. Yep, even Google’s wizards face this problem.
Net net: Google will have little choice but find a way to monetize clicks, eye balls, customer service, cloud access, storage, and any thing that can be slapped with a price tag. Take that to MBA class.
Cynthia Murrell, July 2, 2024
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