The world finally saw Google Bard at the I/O last week, and the comparisons to ChatGPT were inevitable. But what if I told you that this is EXACTLY what Microsoft wanted??

Remember a few months back when the whole world had shifted to Chatgpt, Microsoft had stolen the limelight from Google, and Samsung was even rumored to make Bing as its default search engine? Well, turns out Bing search actually LOST market share over the last six months, even before the launch of BARD! While many users might be using Chatgpt, nobody’s touching Bing.

So why would this be a good thing for Microsoft? It’s because Microsoft NEVER intended for Bing to take on Google search! They made a big song and dance about Bing for one purpose only.It was to force Google to launch BARD! But why would they want that?

Every time you search on an LLM like BARD instead of a search engine, it costs the company more money. And there’s the issue of BARD potentially cannibalizing Google search,while monetization is not yet fully baked in.Not to mention the small matter of the entire business model of publishers on the internet. All that could impact Google’s margins.But what would Microsoft gain by diluting Google’s margins? Every dollar that Google doesn’t make on search is a dollar they can’t invest in Google cloud. And guess who benefits from the #3 cloud platform not investing aggressively in the business?

Yes, the #2 cloud platform, Microsoft Azure! So turns out all the hoopla around Bing search was one big head fake! You don’t have to take my word for it. Read between Satya Nadella’s lines here, as he sips on some filter coffee and plays 3D chess.