CALDEIRÃO DE BOLSA

“Não podemos deixar isto acontecer”, frisou o Presidente dos EUA, ameaçando com o início de um procedimento no âmbito da secção 301 “para anular as penalizações injustas que estão a ser cobradas a estas empresas americanas que pagam impostos”.

Google Dodges Worst Penalties in U.S. Antitrust Case

Judge bars company from exclusive deals but allows it to keep its Chrome browser and high-stakes agreement with Apple

Publishers race to counter ‘Google Zero’ threat as AI changes search engines

Media groups explore new ways of reaching readers and making money amid arrival of AI tools that affect clicks


Publishers are racing to find ways to counter the threat of “Google Zero” — the sharp fall in web traffic that many media executives worry about following the launch of AI-based tools on the US platform.

In late July the latest iteration of Google’s AI tools was rolled out in the UK having already reached the US, leading some publishers to warn that an already evident decline in traffic from the search engine risked accelerating.

Google AI mode provides detailed answers to even nuanced search queries at the top of results, and builds on the existing AI Overviews that summarise results without the need to click through to source material.

“Like everyone, we have definitely felt the impact of AI Overviews. There is only one direction of travel; not only are AIs getting better, but they’re getting better in an exponential fashion,” said Sean Cornwell, chief executive of Immediate Media, which owns the Radio Times and Good Food brands in the UK. “It’s only heading in one direction, and we’ve got to assume that the drop-offs are going to be pretty stark at some point in the next few years.”

According to a May report by Enders and the Professional Publishers Association, media groups were “losing visibility and value as their content is used but not rewarded”, with about half reporting a search traffic decline over the past year.

Al Overviews were cannibalising website visits, Enders said, with four in five consumers relying on “zero-click search results” in at least 40 per cent of their searches.

Other recent studies by Pew Research Center and Authoritas showed that Google users were less likely to click on links when an AI summary appeared in the results. Google said that there were “fundamental flaws” in the methodology of the reports.

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Whatever the extent of the impact of Overviews and now AI Mode, publishers are preparing for a future where Google is less crucial to their sites.

Piers North, chief executive of Reach, the UK group that owns newspapers including the Mirror and Express, said “clearly change is under way” for the future of search traffic. “We’re mindful of the need to prepare for what some people are calling Google Zero or certainly a future that is different from the search-based ecosystem that’s driven online for the past 25 years or so.”

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Elon Musk says Google has the best shot at being the leader in AI

• Elon Musk says Google "currently has the highest probability of being the leader" in AI.
  
• But that "may change in a few years," he added.
  
• Musk's comment comes as he again escalates his ongoing feud with Sam Altman and OpenAI.

xAI CEO Elon Musk paid a rare compliment to his rival Google on Wednesday.

"Outside of real-world AI, Google has the biggest compute (and data) advantage for now, so currently has the highest probability of being the leader," Musk wrote in an X post.

But that "may change in a few years," he added.

"For the foreseeable future, the major AI companies will continue to prosper, as will xAI. There is just so much to do!" Musk wrote.
Musk and Google did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Google has long been a mainstay in AI.

In 2017, Google Research released a paper titled "Attention Is All You Need." This seminal work introduced the world to the concept of the Transformer, the technology that powers large language models like ChatGPT.

The search giant has also invested in AI startups such as Anthropic and Safe Superintelligence. Google owns a 14% stake in Anthropic, a startup founded by former OpenAI employees, per legal filings obtained by The New York Times.

Google has continued to make hefty investments in AI. During its second-quarter earnings call last month, the company said it was raising its capital expenditures by $10 billion this year to $85 billion. Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, said the increase in capital expenditures would help meet the increased demand for chips and Google's AI products.

Last year, Google DeepMind's CEO, Demis Hassabis, was one of three researchers awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Hassabis and his colleague, John Jumper, were recognized for Google DeepMind's work on protein-structure prediction.

Musk's comments come as he continues to escalate his feud with Sam Altman and OpenAI. On Monday, Musk said xAI would take "immediate legal action" against Apple for what he said was Apple's bias toward OpenAI in its App Store rankings. A spokesperson for Apple told Business Insider on Tuesday that the App Store is "designed to be fair and free of bias."

Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI in 2015, but their relationship soured after Musk left its board in 2018. Last year, Musk sued OpenAI and accused the ChatGPT maker of violating its nonprofit mission when it partnered with Microsoft.

Musk launched his own AI startup, xAI, in July 2023 and debuted his chatbot, Grok, later that year. xAI raised over $12 billion in its Series A, B, and C funding rounds in 2024 and was valued at a reported $50 billion.

Last month, Musk said on X that his EV company, Tesla, will ask its shareholders to vote on whether to invest in xAI. He did not specify when the vote would take place.

"It's not up to me. If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago," Musk wrote on X on July 13.

NirSup Escreveu:Só para dizer que a META está à frente, muito à frente, da concorrência.

NirSup Escreveu:E as evidências não precisam de demonstração (ao ver o Sol nascer no horizonte, ninguém exige provas de que é dia).

MarcoAntonio Escreveu:Bom, a Google/Alphabet é, de momento, literalmente, um dos 4 campeões (leia-se, líderes). OpenAI, Alphabet, xAI e Anthropic lideram em LLMs, com modelos sensivelmente ao mesmo nível. A Meta poderá vir a juntar-se (ainda não está lá).

Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $35bn

AI start-up positioning itself as a bidder ahead of US court decision that could force the search group to sell the browser

Perplexity has made an unsolicited $34.5bn offer for Google’s Chrome, as the artificial intelligence start-up positions itself as a bidder should a US court force the search giant to sell the web browser.

In a letter sent on Tuesday to Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet, Perplexity co-founder Aravind Srinivas said the offer is “designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy . . . by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator”.

Perplexity, whose AI search tool is a rival to Google’s core product, made a similarly high-profile offer to buy TikTok for a reported $50bn earlier this year — which has not come to anything.

For Chrome, Perplexity claims “multiple large [venture capital] funds have agreed to finance the [all-cash] transaction in full”, but refused to name them. The value of the offer is almost double the start-up’s $18bn valuation.

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Alphabet declined to comment. A person familiar with the internal deliberations said the company did not view it as a serious offer.

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NirSup Escreveu:Mesmo assim, uma coisa é a GOOGLE estar sozinha no mercado (galopando olimpicamente sem adversários na pista e recolhendo, quase, toda a receita publicitária atrelada ao seu motor de buscas e ao ecossistema de serviços que criou ao seu redor (YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, etc.)

A startup partilhou com o Wall Street Journal que terá já vários investidores alinhados, incluindo fundos de capital de risco, que terão concordado em “apoiar” a transação por inteiro. A oferta surge numa altura em que se debate sobre o futuro do motor de buscas da Google.

No ano passado, a Wiz recusou a oferta de 23 mil milhões da Alphabet, alegando querer manter-se independente e que tinha planos para entrar em bolsa, o que acabou por não acontecer. Ao fim de meses de negociações, a empresa cedeu.

A dona da Google registou um aumento das vendas de 12% para 96,5 mil milhões, ligeiramente abaixo das previsões dos analistas, com a unidade de cloud também a falhar as previsões. Já os lucros aumentaram quase 30%.

Uma mudança de nome e dois "stock splits" depois, a tecnológica pertence hoje ao grupo das "two-trillion dollar babies" e das "sete magníficas". Há pouco mais de um mês atingiu o valor mais elevado de sempre.