Microsoft blindsided Google with Copilot on search but failed to market the advantage successfully or advance it significantly enough to avoid a huge pushback from Google. That pushback happened last week at Google I/O, and it was an impressive showing.
While Marc Andreessen and I disagree on what happened when Netscape went under, my perception was that Netscape blew its considerable lead on Microsoft in browsers by not adequately protecting it and not realizing the power of Microsoft marketing back then.
Microsoft’s marketing capabilities have declined sharply since then. While it blindsided Google with Copilot on search, Microsoft failed to market the advantage successfully or advance it significantly enough to avoid a huge pushback from Google. That pushback happened last week at Google I/O, and it was an impressive showing.
Another weakness for Microsoft is that Google has focused on smartphones as the vehicle for its AI efforts, while Microsoft has focused on PCs. Google’s path is probably the better one. As we move from text to voice interface and include ever more capabilities for the AI to see, it makes more sense to have it in a tool that is always with you rather than just on your desk or in your laptop bag.
Much like Microsoft’s was with Netscape, I think Google’s approach hits harder where people want AI to be. Microsoft Build is this week. I’m not expecting a smartphone push, but you never know. Microsoft doesn’t go down easy. So, calling the winner will have to wait until next week, at least.
By the way, if you want to see something that is both fascinating and just a bit freaky, watch this video of two OpenAI GPT-4o phones having a chat with each other (thankfully, neither argued for taking over the world). When I finished watching this, I felt redundant.
Let’s talk Google I/O this week, and we’ll close with my Product of the Week, a great new AI PC laptop from Lenovo that is an impressive example of its class.Artificial Intelligence
AI is changing incredibly rapidly. Today, most people access AI either through an application like Grammarly or from the cloud through a browser interface. That’s a problem if you want to use the same AI interface while away from your desk. The vendors believe, and I agree, that you’ll prefer AI to be with you wherever you go, not just wait for you back at the office.
In addition, much like we changed the desktop hardware significantly when we went from mainframes and command line interfaces to graphical user interfaces, mice, and PCs, so, too, do I expect we’ll change our endpoints when we move from the PC interfaces and accessories to an AI interface that is more like another human than like how we’ve worked with PCs in the past.
This change suggests that even smartphones may be at risk, but they are closer to where we’ll end up than the PC is at this point. The Humane Ai Pin is an attempt, for instance, to find what that future device would look like — and, like early smartphones, it isn’t very close to what people want yet, but it is evolving much like smartphones did. So, I wouldn’t write Humane out just yet.Qualcomm’s Role in the AI Market
This positioning puts Qualcomm in a really interesting spot because not only is it the leading provider of smartphone AI technology, but its Snapdragon X also currently leads the market in PC AI technology. It’s rumored that Qualcomm will be taking center stage at Microsoft Build this week.
So, of all the high-end chip vendors, Qualcomm is the best positioned on both platforms to drive the client side of AI development. At the same time, Nvidia remains the most powerful technology provider in the server, high-performance computing, supercomputer, and workstation segments.
