What do you think of the idea of paying to obtain information from the Internet? Until now, we are used to searching and getting completely free information. However, there are rumors that Google wants to charge for using its search engine with AI. But why? What would that mean for users? What are the advantages of paying for information? Let's see.
The arrival of artificial intelligence has made it easier to achieve accurate results and truly useful information in our daily lives. This represents a great advance, especially if we compare it to having to search for what we need in a sea of links to different articles on the subject. Apparently, the big company wants integrate AI search into your paid subscription services. Let's analyze what this is all about.
Does Google want to charge for using its search engine with AI?
According to reports from Financial Times, Google may soon need to charge for using its AI search engine. This drastic change would mean introducing payment options to their search engines, which would obviously influence the revenue the company receives. This would be the first time that Google makes a paid section available to users in one of its main products: the browser.
The possibility that we will have to pay to obtain information generated by artificial intelligence with Google, it makes you think about what it does recently, said Sam Altman, executive director of Open AI. In an interview he expressed that "making a new Google would be very simple» so they prefer the option in which each user pays to obtain reliable information.
What would be the reason why Google wants to charge for its AI search engine?
Now, why would Google want to charge for offering information generated with Artificial Intelligence? The answer has a lot to do with the prices that the company manages. And the truth is that the results offered with the help of AI are much more expensive than a traditional search.
In fact, according to a Reuters report, it is estimated that Each keyword searched with AI costs Google 10 times more than a standard result. This would represent several billion dollars of additional costs globally. Therefore, offering this service would only be viable through user payment.
In this regard, Heather Dawe, chief data scientist at digital transformation consultancy UST said the following: “AI search is more expensive to calculate than traditional Google search processes. Therefore, by charging for AI search, Google will seek to at least recover these costs".
What are the real costs of using generative artificial intelligence?
It is no secret that the energy expenditure required to develop advanced generative models is increasingly higher. For example, engineer James Hamilton said that Amazon invested around 65,000,000 dollars in a training session last year. And, if that were not enough, it is expected that in the future the company's expenses related to artificial intelligence may exceed $1,000,000,000.
On the other hand, it is believed that OpenAI together with Microsoft aims to build a data center that is valued at no less than 100,000,000,000 dollars. Center that would be dedicated to artificial intelligence training. Likewise, at the beginning of this year, Mark Zuckerberg expressed his desire to invest about $9,000,000,000 in Nvidia GPUs.
What has Google said about it?
A spokesperson for the company has stated that they have “years reinventing search” so that users can access information that is as natural as possible. Furthermore, he added that with its AI search services have managed to serve billions of queries and that they have seen significant growth in them. Likewise, he revealed that they will continue to improve their products to meet current needs.
On the other hand, he clarified that at this moment “They are not working on or considering an ad-free search experience.”. Rather, he said they would continue to create new premium features and services to improve their subscription offerings across Google. Finally, he expressed “We have nothing to announce right now.”.
The above means that we will have to wait until the company makes an official announcement to find out if you have to pay for AI searches, how much you have to pay and when we will do it. In any case, we will have to wait for I/O 2024 to see whether or not these searches will be worth it (and the payment).
What it would mean for users
Well, what would this new payment method for Google search mean for users? On the one hand, we would have the advantage of having refined information, accurate and filtered in exchange for payment. In addition, it would save us a lot of time we spend searching and investigating different websites.
And what about the ads? As we already saw, Google has no interest in offering ad-free search services. This means that, regardless of whether we continue using the free services or opt for a subscription, we are going to have to live with the advertising that the company will show us.
Will we have to pay for the traditional search engine?
Now, at this moment you may have doubts about whether at some point you will have to pay to use the Google search engine. But there is not nothing to worry! The possibility of paying for search services would only apply to Google's artificial intelligence search engine. The current search engine will remain as it has always been: free.
Is it fair that Google wants to charge for using its AI search engine?
As we have seen, Google may want to charge for its artificial intelligence-assisted search services. We can say that The idea of charging for such a service is not unreasonable., especially if we take into account the high cost of artificial intelligence today. In any case, we will have to wait for the company to make a statement on the matter to know if this measure will come into effect and, if true, learn more about the prices of the service.