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To judge from its latest quarterly earnings, Google has shored up its defences against the first wave of disruption from generative artificial intelligence. But the real challenge has barely begun.
从最新的季度财报来看，谷歌已经加强了对生成式人工智能首轮冲击的防御。但真正的挑战才刚刚开始。
The search giant misfired with its first, panicked response in the wake of ChatGPT (if you never used Bard, you aren’t alone), but this year it seems to have found its feet. People seem to like having AI-generated answers spliced into their search results. According to Google, they have responded by thinking up 10 per cent more of the types of queries that produce these summaries.
这家搜索巨头在ChatGPT发布后首轮的慌乱应对反应并不奏效（如果你从未用过Bard，你并不孤单），但今年似乎已逐渐稳住局面。用户似乎喜欢在搜索结果中看到AI生成的答案拼接。据谷歌称，用户提出生成摘要的相关查询数量增长了10%。
Being presented with ready-made answers means they are less likely to click on links, of course — according to Pew Research in the US, about half as likely. But that hasn’t stopped solid growth in search advertising revenue.
当然，直接呈现现成答案意味着用户点击链接的意愿会降低——根据美国皮尤研究中心的数据，这种点击的可能性大约减少了一半。但这并未阻止谷歌搜索广告收入的稳健增长。
Defending search has been the first order of business. But generative AI promises to draw people’s time and attention with a whole new set of tools, of which chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT are only the first. Google’s massive advertising business, which accounts for about a third of the entire global digital ads market, was built on indexing and guiding people around the web. Much of this may soon be up for grabs.
守住搜索业务是首要任务。但生成式人工智能承诺将通过全新的一套工具吸引人们的时间和注意力，其中像OpenAI的ChatGPT这样的聊天机器人只是第一步。谷歌庞大的广告业务，占据了全球数字广告市场约三分之一，正是建立在对网络内容的索引和引导用户浏览的基础之上。而这一切很快都可能面临重新洗牌。
For many people, ChatGPT has already broken the habit of turning to a search engine as the default action every time they need something online. AI-powered apps with a wider set of capabilities are becoming the centre of the action.
对于许多人来说，ChatGPT已经打破了每次需要在线内容时都将搜索引擎作为默认操作的习惯。具有更广泛功能的AI应用正在成为行动的中心。
Google chief executive Sundar Pichai seemed to confirm this view in a call with Wall Street analysts this week. AI in search was “more information-focused”, he said, while his company’s separate AI app was “more your assistant, [a] more personal, proactive and powerful assistant for every aspect of your daily life”.
谷歌首席执行官桑达尔•皮查伊本周在与华尔街分析师的电话会议上似乎证实了这一观点。他说，搜索中的人工智能“更注重信息”，而谷歌的独立AI应用“更像是你的助手，是你日常生活各个方面更个性化、更主动、更强大的助手”。
This points to a bifurcation not just in the things that people want to do, but also where they take those actions, leading them to turn from a browser-based search engine towards standalone apps. For Google, browsers have been an important stronghold, and placement as the default search service in browsers is a cornerstone of its business. With AI apps, the field is wide open.
这揭示出一个趋势：不仅人们的需求发生分化，他们采取这些行动的方式与场景也在发生变化——他们正在从基于浏览器的搜索引擎转向独立应用程序。对于谷歌来说，浏览器一直是一个重要的据点，成为浏览器中的默认搜索服务是其业务的基石。而AI应用领域则是一片全新的开放战场。
Google reports respectable numbers for its entry in this category: about 450mn people visit its Gemini app at least once a month, roughly half as many as those who go to ChatGPT.
谷歌报告称，其进入这一类别的人数可观：约有4.5亿人每月至少访问一次其Gemini应用程序，大约是访问ChatGPT的人数的一半。
But on the metrics that really matter, OpenAI has a strong lead. According to estimates that Google itself produced during its antitrust trial in the US earlier this year, ChatGPT had nearly five times as many daily users, each of them making, on average, twice as much use of the app as users of Gemini.
但在真正关键的指标上，OpenAI遥遥领先。根据谷歌今年早些时候在美国反垄断案中提交的估算数据，ChatGPT的日活跃用户数量是Gemini的近5倍，且平均每位用户的使用频率是Gemini用户的两倍。
There is no guarantee OpenAI’s impressive grip on the popular imagination or its momentum will last. After some early slips, Google’s AI models rank just as highly on many tests. It seems a pure technology edge here will be hard for anyone to maintain for long.
OpenAI能否持续保持如此强大的大众关注度和当前的势头尚未可知。在经历最初的失误之后，谷歌的AI模型在多项评测中排名也已追平。这意味着在技术层面，任何一方都难以长时间维持明显优势。
The search company’s extensive collection of platforms and products — it boasts of 15 services with at least 500mn users each — also gives it a powerful weapon to draw users to its AI, and to generate the data to refine its service.
谷歌所拥有的大量平台和产品——其声称有15项服务各自拥有超过5亿用户——也成为其发展AI的一大优势，不仅能吸引用户使用，也能收集数据以持续优化服务。
But this is only part of the challenge. Google also needs to find different ways to make money.
但这只是挑战的一部分。谷歌还需要找到不同的盈利模式。
A turn towards charging subscriptions for premium search services and surging demand for its cloud computing platform are two bright spots. If AI agents guide and shape more of what people do online, reducing their propensity to click, search advertising will atrophy. Rather than monetising attention, Google will need to monetise actions.
转向对高级搜索服务收费和对其云计算平台的需求激增是两个亮点。如果AI助手引导和塑造更多的人的在线行为，减少他们的点击倾向，搜索广告就会萎缩。谷歌需要将行动货币化，而不是将注意力货币化。
To judge by its latest moves, OpenAI has also decided this is where the money will be. Last week saw the launch of ChatGPT agent, a service designed to click around the web on behalf of a user. As reported by the Financial Times, OpenAI is also getting ready to take a cut from commercial transactions that take place over ChatGPT.
从 OpenAI 最近的动作来看，他们也认为这里将是盈利所在。上周，OpenAI 推出了ChatGPT代理，这是一项可以代表用户在网络上操作的服务。据英国《金融时报》报道，OpenAI 还准备从通过 ChatGPT 进行的商业交易中分成。
The potential to combine these tools — using an agent to steer people towards, or even make, their next purchase, then taking a commission — points to how OpenAI could become a power on the commercial web.
将这些工具结合起来的潜力——利用智能代理引导用户进行下一次购买，甚至直接完成购买，并从中抽取佣金——显示了OpenAI有可能在商业网络中成为一股强大力量。
Google’s investors can at least draw heart from signs that their company is starting to find its innovative spark. Project Mariner, a prototype it showed off two months ago, closely echoes ChatGPT agent.
谷歌的投资者至少可以从公司重拾创新精神的迹象中感到些许欣慰。例如两个月前谷歌展示的原型产品“Mariner（水手计划）”，就与ChatGPT代理功能高度相似。
But the lock on advertising that Google has long enjoyed thanks to search is starting to loosen, leaving it to fight on a new battlefield against AI apps — and not just those from OpenAI.
但谷歌长期依靠搜索在广告领域占据的主导地位正开始松动，这使得它不得不在新的战场上与人工智能应用展开竞争——而且对手不仅仅是OpenAI。
richard.waters@ft.com