• Google on Friday proposed possible remedies to resolve an antitrust case over its search business.
• Last month, the DOJ suggested that the judge force Google to sell its Chrome browser.
• Judge Amit Mehta is expected to rule on the final remedies by August 2025.

Google on Friday proposed limitations to its search partnerships as a potential remedy to resolve antitrust violations in its search business.

The proposal would allow Google to continue partnering with third-party companies like Apple in revenue-sharing deals that make Google the default search engine on their devices, unlike the Justice Department's proposal. However, Google's proposal would make the deals non-exclusive, the company said in its filing.

"We don't propose these changes lightly," Google said in a blog post about the proposal. "They would come at a cost to our partners by regulating how they must go about picking the best search engine for their customers. And they would impose burdensome restrictions and oversight over contracts that have reduced prices for devices and supported innovation in rival browsers, both of which have been good for consumers."

Last month, the Justice Department and a group of states asked Judge Amit Mehta to force Google to sell its Chrome browser to resolve the case. They also asked that Google be stopped from entering default search agreements with Apple and other companies and that Google should open its search engine results to competitors.

Industry experts previously told Business Insider that selling Chrome off would open up the browser market and would likely be cheered on by search rivals and advertisers, though it remains unclear how a possible Chrome spinoff might work.

Both sides will present arguments for their proposals at a hearing scheduled for April. The judge is expected to rule on the final remedies by August.

Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, previously said the company intends to appeal the judge's ruling, potentially delaying a final decision by several years.

Representatives for the Justice Department's antitrust division did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Google's CEO said it had cut managers, directors, and VPs by 10% as part of its efficiency drive.
• The company has been boosting efficiency by reducing layers and reorganizing teams.
• Google has been facing down threats from OpenAI and other AI rivals.

Google had cut the number of top management roles by 10% in its push for efficiency, CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in an all-hands meeting on Wednesday.

Pichai said that Google had made changes over the past couple of years to simplify the company and be more efficient, according to two people who heard the remarks, who asked to remain anonymous because they're not authorized to speak to the press.

Pichai said this had included a 10% reduction in managers, directors, and vice presidents, one source said.

A Google spokesperson said that some of the roles in that 10% figure were transitioned to individual contributor roles and that some were role eliminations.

The company has been on an efficiency drive for more than two years. In September 2022, Pichai said he wanted Google to be 20% more efficient, and the following January, the company had a historic round of layoffs that saw 12,000 roles eliminated.

The efficiency push has coincided with AI rivals such as OpenAI unleashing new products that threaten Google's search business.

Google has responded by injecting generative AI features into its core businesses and launching a flurry of new AI features, such as a new AI video generator beating OpenAI's in early testing and a new set of Gemini models, including a "reasoning" model that shows its thought process.

In Wednesday's all-hands meeting, Pichai also clarified the meaning of the word "Googleyness," telling staff that it needed updating for a modern Google.

Are you a current or former Google employee with something to share? You can reach the reporter Hugh Langley via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-628-228-1836) or email ([email protected]).

• In an all-hands, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the word 'Googleyness' had become too broad.
• Pichai clarified what the word means for the company.
• Now it's about being "Mission First" and being "Bold and Responsible."

"Googleyness" has long been a vague word for the search giant. Once used to determine if a candidate is a good fit for hiring, it has evolved in definition over the years.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai just attempted to clarify what the word means for Googlers now.

In a company all-hands meeting on Wednesday, Pichai told staff the definition of "Googleyness" had become too broad and that he felt obliged to clarify it, according to two employees who heard the remarks, who asked to remain anonymous because they're not authorized to speak to the press.

Pichai defined "Googleyness" as the following, per one of those sources:

"Mission First"

"Make Helpful Things"

"Be Bold & Responsible"

"Stay Scrappy"

"Hustle & Have Fun"

"Team Google"

A Google spokesperson declined to comment.

The term "Googleyness" has always been amorphous. In his 2015 book Work Rules, Google's former head of people operations, Laszlo Block, listed certain attributes that he considered "Googleyness," such as "intellectual humility," "enjoying fun," and "comfort with ambiguity."

The company previously changed its hiring guidelines to "avoid confusing Googleyness with culture fit," The Information reported in 2019. The change came after the company had been criticized for its lack of diversity in its workplace.

Are you a current or former Google employee with something to share? You can reach the reporter Hugh Langley via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-628-228-1836) or email ([email protected]).

• Verily, an Alphabet spinoff, plans to raise money and focus its strategy on healthcare AI in 2025.
• It plans to sell tech tools that other companies can use to build AI models and apps.
• The changes are underway as Verily separates itself from Alphabet and looks to mature as a company.

Verily Life Sciences plans to reorient its strategy around AI in 2025, just as it marks its 10th anniversary as a company under Alphabet.

The unit, which uses technology and data to improve healthcare, is looking to mature. As of January, it will have separated from many of Google's internal systems in an attempt to stand independently. Simultaneously, it's refocusing its strategy around AI, according to two employees with knowledge of the matter, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss confidential information.

This new strategy would primarily involve other healthcare companies using Verily's tech infrastructure to develop AI models and apps, resulting from a multi-year effort across teams. It ultimately aims to become companies' one-stop-shop for tech needs like training AI for drug discovery and building apps for health coaching.

The unit is also looking to raise another round of capital in the next year, the two people familiar with the matter said. The company's last investment was a $1 billion round led by Alphabet in 2022. Alphabet will likely lead the round again, although leadership could also bid for outside capital as Verily tries to become "increasingly independent," one source said.

The question for next year is whether Verily can finally start turning long-gestating ideas into profits. One of the people said Verily still generates the most revenue selling stop-loss insurance to employers, which is a far cry from the higher-margin business it's aiming for. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that this business, called Granular Insurance, was Verily's most lucrative.

Verily has been criticized in the past for having a rudderless strategy. It's entertained bets on topics as diverse as editing mosquito populations and helping pharmaceutical companies run clinical trials.

In an email to Business Insider, a spokesperson for Verily declined to comment on non-public information. He confirmed the company's plans to provide tech infrastructure for third parties, designed to provide "precision health capabilities across research and care."

The AI strategy's origin story

Verily's idea to become a tech provider for other healthcare companies grew out of its own internal needs a few years ago when it decided to "re-platform" its various bets on a shared infrastructure, a source familiar with the matter said.

The multi-year effort is now coming to fruition, and Verily plans to sell the core technology it uses to health plans, providers, digital health startups, and life sciences companies.

The platform will include data storage and AI training. Companies could also use Verily's tech tools to spin up apps without having to code as much. For example, a digital health startup could use Verily's tools to build a coaching app with AI insights on weight loss.

"Large pharma companies, for example, look at the work we do and recognize that the data science applications or clinical research tools that they need to build themselves could be better if they were built using our platform," said Verily CEO Stephen Gillett in an interview with Fortune in November.

In that interview, Gillett said Verily's tech tools would include sophisticated AI capabilities for healthcare, data aggregation, privacy, and consent. One source said the company plans to start rolling them out in 2025.

Even as the leading AI models learn from the entirety of the internet, healthcare data remains largely private. Subsequently, Verily is betting that there's a growing need to further specialize the models for patient care and research. The upstart already does this work through its partnership with clients like the National Institutes of Health. Through a business line called Workbench, Verily hosts massive datasets for the NIH, complete with analysis tools.

Verily hasn't dropped its ambitions to grow its own healthcare business. In 2026, it plans to relaunch a diabetes and hypertension-focused app, Lightpath, broadly for health plans and employers — this time with AI coaches supplementing human ones. Verily also intends to expand Lightpath to more health conditions.

Verily's reshuffling

Verily spun out of Google's moonshot group in 2015 and remained part of Alphabet's collection of long-term businesses, sometimes called "other bets." Under its then-CEO Andy Conrad, the unit explored a menagerie of ideas from surgical robots to wearables. Several of these projects — glucose-monitoring contact lenses, for instance — haven't panned out.

Shortly after Gillett replaced Conrad as CEO in 2023, he announced the company would lay off 15% of its workforce and "advance fewer initiatives with greater resources."

Since then, Verily has pruned projects and teams to save costs and sharpen its focus. Dr. Amy Abernethy, Verily's former chief medical officer who joined the company in 2021, focused on aiding clinical research before departing late last year.

Verily's shift to AI, meanwhile, seems to have coincided with the hiring of Myoung Cha and Bharat Rajagopal as the chief product and revenue officers, respectively, earlier this year.

Cutting ties with Google

Executing the AI strategy isn't the only challenge Verily's leadership faces in 2025.

Since 2021, the life science unit has been reducing its dependency on Google's internal systems and technology through an internal program known as Flywheel. BI previously reported that it set a December 16, 2024, deadline to cut many of these ties.

The separation involves Verily employees losing many of their cushy Google benefits, which has been a point of consternation for the group, the two people said.

Gillett remarked in a town hall meeting earlier this year that some employees may feel Verily is no longer the place for them after the separation, according to a person who heard the remarks.

Waymo will begin testing its autonomous vehicle technology in Tokyo in early 2025, the first time the Alphabet company’s robotaxis have driven on public roads outside the U.S. The move to Japan is part of Waymo’s “road trips,” a development program that involves bringing its technology to a variety of cities and testing it — […]

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• Donald Trump addressed the scores of CEOs who have jockeyed to get private meetings.
• "Everybody wants to be my friend," Trump told reporters.
• Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and other top execs have met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that major tech CEOs want to meet with him ahead of his second term, showcasing how an industry that once spurned him is now supportive.

"One of the big differences between the first term, in the first term, everybody was fighting me," Trump told reporters during a news conference. "In this term, everybody wants to be my friend."

Big Tech executives like Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai have or are expected to visit Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president-elect. "I had dinner with, sort of, almost all of them, and the rest are coming," Trump said on Monday.

"I don't know, my personality changed or something," the president-elect added.

The series of meetings follows an election season that saw some major names in Silicon Valley embrace Trump, including, most notably, Elon Musk.

Trump has reciprocated the love, naming Musk to co-lead the newly created "Department of Government Efficiency" and tapping former PayPal executive David Sacks as his crypto and AI czar.

Some in the tech community have also announced their intentions to make $1 million donations to Trump's inaugural committee either by themselves or through their corporation.

Many in the business community, including tech, were skeptical of Trump's first term.

Some, including Musk, broke with Trump over his decision to stick by his campaign promise to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord. Others, including CEOs from Intel, Merck, and Under Armour, resigned from White House advisory councils in the wake of Trump's response to white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump, however, continued to court CEOs. In 2019, his White House launched a new business-focused council that included the likes of Cook, along with top leaders from IBM and Walmart.

• Waymo One's robotaxis could threaten Uber and Lyft drivers' earnings if they get access to airports.
• Airport rides are among the most profitable trips for human drivers.
• Waymo One is offering airport trips in Phoenix and is awaiting approval in other markets.

If Waymo One's robotaxis continue expanding to airports, human ride-hailing drivers could see their incomes take a big hit.

Airport trips are "incredibly important" for ride-hailing drivers, particularly those who work near cities with major airports, said Lindsey Cameron, an assistant professor of management — whose research focuses on AI and gig work — at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She added that airport pickups can be especially profitable because those rides often have higher fares, which are driven by strong customer demand.

"Those are the most lucrative rides," she said. "You've got a captive audience who wants to go home, and so they're willing to pay."

Many Uber and Lyft drivers have told BI their gigs are already less profitable than they were a few years ago — due, in part, to an increase in competition from both human and robot drivers. The threat of robotaxis further chipping away at their business has put some of them on edge.

Nicole Moore, a part-time Lyft driver and the president of the driver advocacy group Rideshare Drivers United, said that in the last couple of weeks, she's seen a significant uptick in concern from LA-based drivers about the impacts of robotaxis on their earnings. In November, Waymo One began offering rides to anyone in Los Angeles after previously operating a limited service with a waitlist.

"You put more drivers on the street — whether they're robot drivers or people — everybody makes less money," she said, adding, "We're thankful they're not in the airport yet."

Waymo One, which is owned by Alphabet, is the only company operating autonomous vehicles at US airports, Waymo told BI. It's also the biggest autonomous taxi service in the US: In October, the company said it was providing more than 150,000 weekly paid rides in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. Additionally, the company announced this fall it will offer rides to the public in the Atlanta and Austin markets early next year and in Miami in 2026.

While Waymo One airport trips are available in Phoenix —and the company has approval to begin pilot testing at the Austin airport — robotaxis are still restricted from airports in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In these cities, approval for airport rides would come from groups that oversee the airports' operations.

The experts BI spoke to said it's unclear if and when robotaxis will receive widespread approval for airport trips in the markets they're operating.

Spokespeople for Los Angeles World Airports and the Airport Commission for San Francisco International Airport told BI there is no estimated timeline for when Waymo One will receive approval, but the groups are monitoring the robotaxi's progress.

The LAWA spokesperson said the airport can experience significant curbside congestion and that for driverless taxis to gain airport approval, they would need to operate safely and efficiently and not impact the airport's current commercial and private vehicle operations. The Airport Commission spokesperson said driverless taxis would need to demonstrate the ability to operate on freeways and in communities near the airport and ensure they could safely meet the needs of customers.

Waymo is pushing for airport expansion in the US

Waymo told BI that it's providing thousands of trips each week to and from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, the most popular destination for its riders in the city. The company also said it's in active discussions with San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport about expanding its fleet to these airports, but didn't give BI a timeline for when it expects to receive approvals.

The company added that it was granted approval to provide robotaxi trips on freeways in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin, but that it hasn't begun offering those rides to the public yet: Access to these trips is currently limited to Waymo's employees in San Francisco and Phoenix.

A spokesperson for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport told BI that the airport would monitor Waymo One's pilot testing before deciding whether to approve airport pickups.

Uber did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment, and Lyft said that its drivers have generally earned more on airport trips than on non-airport trips.

It's not just drivers who are feeling the pinch from Waymo One's expansions. GM announced on December 11 that it was retreating from the robotaxi business "given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market."

Meanwhile, on December 5, shares of Uber and Lyft traded lower after Waymo announced it was expanding to Miami.

To be sure, Waymo isn't the only company rolling out robotaxis: Tesla and the Amazon-owned Zoox are also developing their own versions of a robotaxi.

Airport trips are some drivers' 'bread and butter'

Moore said that airport trips aren't as profitable for drivers as they used to be, but that they remain important.

"They have been our bread and butter for many, many years," she said.

Jason D., a 50-year-old driver in Phoenix, told BI he does more airport trips than any other type of ride — in part because he drives an Uber XL vehicle that has the space for luggage and multiple passengers. He said competing with Waymo One at airports and elsewhere has hurt his earnings.

"Driverless taxis are flooding an already competitive Phoenix market and taking money from human drivers," Jason D, who drives full-time for Uber and asked that his last name not be included for fear of professional repercussions, previously told BI. He added that Waymo One's cars also contribute to significant congestion at the airport because they don't know how to follow traffic officers' hand and voice commands.

Sergio Avedian, a part-time Uber and Lyft driver based in the Los Angeles area and senior contributor to the gig-driver-advocacy blog and YouTube channel The Rideshare Guy, told BI that airport drop-offs tend to be quick, pay relatively well, and often come with a tip.

In comparison, doing airport pickups can require drivers at major airports to wait in designated lots until a passenger books a ride. Avedian said this process can be frustrating, but that airport pickups often pay better than drop-offs because the fares are higher — which is why some drivers think they're worth the wait.

"You have a chance of maybe catching a 'unicorn,'" he said, referring to the highest-paying trips. He added that many airport riders are business travelers who can expense their trips and are therefore less likely to balk at a high fare or not tip.

While robotaxis are already operating in the LA market, Avedian isn't overly concerned about robotaxis impact on drivers' earnings in the short term. But he knows the clock is ticking.

"Long-term, definitely it's going to be a threat, and that's why we suggest everybody not treat Uber and Lyft driving as a career," he previously told BI.

If more airports approve robotaxis, Moore said she hopes riders will value the customer service humans provide.

"Customers often expect you to put their luggage in the trunk — is the robotaxi going to do that?"

We want to hear from you. Do you work in the gig economy? Please fill out this form.

Correction: December 13, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the number of weekly paid rides Waymo provided. It was more than 150,000, not 100,000.

• Google unveiled Gemini 2.0, enhancing the AI product's capabilities.
• Gemini 2.0 focuses on agentic AI, improving multi-step problem-solving.
• Google's Project Astra and Mariner showcase advanced AI integration with popular services.

It's December, which apparently means it's time for all the AI companies to show off what they've been working on for the past year. Not to be left out, Google lifted the lid on its next-generation AI model, Gemini 2.0, which it promises is a big step up in smarts and capabilities.

If the theme of Gemini 1.0 was multimodality — an ability to combine and understand different types of information, such as text and images — Gemini 2.0 is all about agents, AI that can act more autonomously and solve multi-step problems with limited human input.

"Over the last year, we have been investing in developing more agentic models, meaning they can understand more about the world around you, think multiple steps ahead, and take action on your behalf, with your supervision," said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a blog post announcing Gemini 2.0 on Wednesday.

Users can test out some of Gemini 2.0's new abilities this week, including a new "Deep Research" feature that will have Gemini scour the web for information on a topic and prepare it in an easy-to-read report. Google said Deep Research, which will be available to Gemini Advanced subscribers, will perform like a human in the way it searches and locates relevant information on the web before starting a new search based on what it's learned.

Google plans to bring Gemini 2.0 to its AI Overviews feature in Search. The feature, which has dramatically transformed the way Google retrieves answers from the web, got off to a rocky start (pizza glue, anyone?). Google then scaled Overviews back and made various technical tweaks to improve performance.

With Gemini 2.0, Google says Overviews can tackle more complex searches, including multi-step questions and multimodal queries that use text and images. Google said it's already started testing the improved Overviews this week and will roll them out more broadly early next year.

This week, Google is also rolling out an experimental version of Gemini 2.0 Flash — a model designed for high-volume tasks at speed — that developers can play with. Anyone accessing the Gemini chatbot through the browser or the Gemini app will also be able to try it with the new model.

Google said Flash 2.0 will make Gemini faster, smarter, and more capable of reasoning. It's also now capable of generating images natively (previously, Google had stitched on a separate AI model to conjure up pictures within Gemini). Google said that should improve image generation, as it's drawing from Gemini 2.0's vast knowledge of the world.

Project Astra

Most of the other interesting new announcements Google teased won't be available for wider public consumption for a while.

One of these is Project Astra, which Google first previewed at I/O back in May. Google demoed a real-time AI assistant that could see the world around it and answer questions. Now, Google is showing an even better version of Astra built on Gemini 2.0, which the company said can draw on some of Google's most popular services, such as Search, Lens, and Maps.

In a new virtual demo, Google showed someone holding up their phone camera to a London bus and Astra answering a question on whether that bus could get them to Chinatown. The new and improved Astra can also converse in multiple (and mixed) languages, Google said.

Google will roll out Astra to a limited number of early testers, and it didn't say when more people will have access to it. Bibo Xu, the Astra product manager at Google DeepMind, told reporters on a call that Google expects these features to roll out through its apps over time, suggesting Astra may arrive incrementally rather than as one big product.

Google also teased Astra running on a pair of augmented reality glasses.

Project Mariner

Additionally, Google teased Project Mariner, a tool that lets AI take control of a browser and scour the web for information. It can recognize pixels, images, text, and code on a webpage and use them to navigate and find answers.

Google referred to Mariner as an early research prototype and said it's only letting a select group of early testers try it via a Chrome extension.

"We're early in our understanding of the full capabilities of AI agents for computer use and we understand the risks associated with AI models that can take actions on a user's behalf," said Google Labs product manager Jaclyn Konzelmann.

For example, Google said it would limit certain actions, such as by having Mariner ask for final confirmation before making an online purchase.

Got a tip share? Some insight to share? You can reach the reporter Hugh Langley via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-628-228-1836) or email ([email protected]).

• Google found its AI Workspace product lagged rivals, internal documents show.
• A study earlier this year found the tool trailed Microsoft and Apple in brand familiarity and usage.
• Google hopes Workspace is one way it can turn AI into profit.

As Google pours untold amounts of cash into AI, it's banking on products such as Gemini for Google Workspace to turn that investment into revenue. An internal presentation reveals the company worried that Gemini lagged behind its rivals across key metrics.

Gemini for Google Workspace puts Google's AI features into a handful of the company's productivity tools, such as Gmail, Docs, and Google Meet. Users can have the AI model rewrite an email, whip up a presentation, or summarize documents filled with dense information. Google, which charges customers extra for these add-ons, claims the features will save users time and improve the quality of their work.

Gemini for Google Workspace trailed all its key rivals, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and even Apple, when it came to brand familiarity and usage, according to an internal market research presentation reviewed by Business Insider.

The data tracked Gemini's brand strength during the first half of 2024 and included data on what percentage of audiences use and pay for Gemini for Google Workspace in certain segments.

One document seen by BI said that Workspace's Gemini tools were "far behind the competition" but that a strong Q4 could help the company in 2025.

In a written statement, a spokesperson said the data came from a study tracking brand awareness during the brand transition from "Duet AI" to "Gemini" earlier this year and called the data "old and obsolete."

"In the time since, we've brought Gemini for Workspace to millions more customers and made significant, double-digit gains across key categories, including familiarity, future consideration, and usage. We're very pleased with our momentum and are encouraged by all the great feedback we are getting from our users," the spokesperson added.

The internal data tracked Gemini's brand strength across commercial, consumer, and executive groups. In the US commercial group, Gemini scored lower than Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT across four categories: familiarity, consideration, usage, and paid usage, one slide showed. Paid usage was measured at 22%, 16 points lower than Copilot and ChatGPT.

Data for the UK in the commercial group also showed Gemini mostly behind its rivals, although it scored slightly higher than Copilot in paid usage. In Brazil and India, Gemini for Workspace fared better than Copilot across most categories but still fell below ChatGPT, the data showed.

"Gemini trails both Copilot and ChatGPT in established markets," the document said, adding that it "rises above Copilot across the funnel" in Brazil and India.

In another part of Google's internal presentation that focused on brand familiarity, Google's Gemini for Workspace came in last place in consumer, commercial, and executive categories, trailing ChatGPT, Copilot, Meta AI, and Apple AI.

Familiarity was particularly low for the US consumer category, with Gemini for Workspace scoring just 45%, while Copilot scored 49%, ChatGPT and Apple both scored 80%, and Meta scored 82%.

'We have the same problem as Microsoft'

Microsoft's Copilot, which does similar tasks like summarizing emails and meetings, likewise struggles to live up to the hype, with some dissatisfied customers and employees who said the company has oversold the current capabilities of the product, BI recently reported.

"We have the same problem as Microsoft," said a Google employee directly familiar with the Gemini for Workspace strategy. "Just with less market share." The person asked to remain anonymous because they were not permitted to speak to the press.

Google's data showed Apple and Meta's AI products have much bigger market recognition, which could benefit those companies as they roll out business products that compete with Google's.

Internally, the Workspace group has recently undergone a reshuffle. The head of Google Workspace, Aparna Pappu, announced internally in October that she was stepping down, BI previously reported. Bob Frati, vice president of Workspace sales, also left the company earlier this year. Jerry Dischler, a former ads exec who moved to the Cloud organization earlier this year, now leads the Workspace group.

Are you a current or former Google employee? Got more insight to share? You can reach the reporter Hugh Langley via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-628-228-1836) or email ([email protected]).

• Google's search share slipped from June to November, new survey finds.
• ChatGPT gained market share over the period, potentially challenging Google's dominance.
• Still, generative AI features are benefiting Google, increasing user engagement.

ChatGPT is gaining on Google in the lucrative online search market, according to new data released this week.

In a recent survey of 1,000 people, OpenAI's chatbot was the top search provider for 5% of respondents, up from 1% in June, according to brokerage firm Evercore ISI.

Millennials drove the most adoption, the firm added in a research note sent to investors.

Google still dominates the search market, but its share slipped. According to the survey results, 78% of respondents said their first choice was Google, down from 80% in June.

It's a good business to be a gatekeeper

A few percentage points may not seem like much, but controlling how people access the world's online information is a big deal. It's what fuels Google's ads business, which produces the bulk of its revenue and huge profits. Microsoft Bing only has 4% of the search market, per the Evercore report, yet it generates billions of dollars in revenue each year.

ChatGPT's gains, however slight, are another sign that Google's status as the internet's gatekeeper may be under threat from generative AI. This new technology is changing how millions of people access digital information, sparking a rare debate about the sustainability of Google's search dominance.

OpenAI launched a full search feature for ChatGPT at the end of October. It's also got a deal with Apple this year that puts ChatGPT in a prominent position on many iPhones. Both moves are a direct challenge to Google. (Axel Springer, the owner of Business Insider, has a commercial relationship with OpenAI).

ChatGPT user satisfaction vs Google

When the Evercore analysts drilled down on the "usefulness" of Google's AI tools, ChatGPT, and Copilot, Microsoft's consumer AI helper, across 10 different scenarios, they found intriguing results.

There were a few situations where ChatGPT beat Google on satisfaction by a pretty wide margin: people learning specific skills or tasks, wanting help with writing and coding, and looking to be more productive at work.

It even had a 4% lead in a category that suggests Google shouldn't sleep too easy: people researching products and pricing online.

Google is benefiting from generative AI

Still, Google remains far ahead, and there were positive findings for the internet giant from Evercore's latest survey.

Earlier this year, Google released Gemini, a ChatGPT-like helper, and rolled out AI Overviews, a feature that uses generative AI to summarize many search results. In the Evercore survey, 71% of Google users said these tools were more effective than the previous search experience.

In another survey finding, among people using tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, 53% said they're searching more. That helps Google as well as OpenAI.

What's more, the tech giant's dominance hasn't dipped when it comes to commercial searches: people looking to buy stuff like iPhones and insurance. This suggests Google's market share slippage is probably more about queries for general information, meaning Google's revenue growth from search is probably safe for now.

So in terms of gobbling up more search revenue, ChatGPT has its work cut out.

Evercore analyst Mark Mahaney told BI that even a 1% share of the search market is worth roughly $2 billion a year in revenue. But that only works if you can make money from search queries as well as Google does.

"That's 1% share of commercial searches and assuming you can monetize as well as Google — and the latter is highly unlikely in the near or medium term," he said.

• Google CEO Sundar Pichai says AI progress will be more challenging in 2025.
• Pichai said he doesn't buy into the idea of an AI performance wall but said, "The hill is steeper."
• Industry insiders say they're looking for new breakthroughs to solve AI's current bottlenecks.

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said that while he doesn't believe progress in AI development is hitting a "wall," he does see it slowing down in the months ahead.

Speaking at The New York Times' Dealbook summit on Wednesday, Pichai said Google was preparing to launch its next generation of models, but said he also expects progress next year to slow down.

"I think the progress is going to get harder when I look at '25. The low-hanging fruit is gone," he said. "The hill is steeper."

Whether AI has hit a performance plateau is a major topic of debate within the industry right now. Some leaders, including OpenAI Sam Altman, have pushed back on the idea that AI is hitting a wall.

However, some industry experts and company insiders told BI there are bottlenecks when it comes to feeding models new high-quality data. As such, companies are exploring new approaches, such as focusing on how models reason.

Former OpenAI chief scientist and Safe Superintelligence cofounder Ilya Sutskever told Reuters last month that results from scaling up when it comes to pre-training models had plateaued. "Everyone is looking for the next thing," he told the publication.

"I don't fully subscribe to the wall notion," Pichai said on Wednesday, adding that he has a lot of confidence that there will still be progress in 2025.

"When you start out quickly scaling up you can throw more compute and you can make a lot of progress, but you definitely are going to need deeper breakthroughs as we go to the next stage," he said. "So you can perceive it as there's a wall, or there's some small barriers."

Pichai added that the next wave of AI progress will require technical breakthroughs in reasoning and completing a sequence of actions "more reliably."

During the discussion, the Google chief also took a shot at Microsoft after Andrew Ross Sorkin quoted its CEO, Satya Nadella, criticizing Google for not being the obvious leader in AI today despite having such a head start over its rivals

"I would love to do a side-by-side comparison of Microsoft's own models and our models any day, any time," Pichai retorted. "They're using someone else's models," he added, referring to how Microsoft uses models from OpenAI.

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