Microsoft May Limit Data Access to Competitors’ AI Search Tools

Microsoft has warned its competitors in the search engine market that they risk losing access to its Bing search index data. This primarily concerns competitors that use the Bing search index as the foundation of AI chatbots.

Licensing Search Data

Microsoft licenses its search data to web search companies, including DuckDuckGo and Yahoo. Microsoft released a chat technology in February that resembles OpenAI’s ChatGPT in Bing.

While Bloomberg did not disclose the names of the threatened companies, it did mention that DuckDuckGo recently introduced DuckAssist. Additionally, it noted that Microsoft clients like Neeva Inc. and You.com launched their AI search products, NeevaAI & YouChat, respectively.

Starting today, you can try DuckAssist in our browsers and extensions!

If you ask a question in our search box that can be answered by Wikipedia, DuckAssist may appear and use AI natural language technology to anonymously generate a brief, sourced summary of what it finds there. pic.twitter.com/MQhB4re0pL

— DuckDuckGo (@DuckDuckGo) March 8, 2023

How the Chatbots are Using ChatGPT

The newer search chatbots aim to merge ChatGPT’s conversational and interactive abilities with the data offered by a standard search engine. To gather all the data required for a search chatbot would be expensive and technically challenging. This is because it involves maintaining servers to store the data and performing regular web crawls to incorporate updates. Therefore, Neeva, DuckDuckGo, and You.com maybe employ Bing to obtain some information for their standard search engines.

Microsoft has reportedly told a minimum of two firms that employ the Bing search index for their AI bots is a violation of their contract terms. The sources who disclosed this information wished to remain anonymous due to the confidential nature of the disagreement. The company said it might revoke the licenses enabling companies to access its search index.

Microsoft Response

In a statement, Microsoft acknowledged that they have been in contact with the relevant partners failing to adhere to their terms, and are committed to enforcing them uniformly. The company also emphasized that it will continue collaborating with the affected parties. If these partners were to lose access to Microsoft’s index, it would be challenging for these small search engines to identify a viable alternative. Microsoft & Google remain the only two firms focusing on indexing the entire web. Google’s constraints on its index use have resulted in almost many search engines using Bing.

The future of the dispute may be uncertain, but it shows that AI chatbots will remain a significant aspect of the search engine industry. As technological advancements persist and businesses compete to develop the most superior AI-powered search tools, these conflicts could continue to mold the competitive environment for many years to come.

The featured image is from The Business Standard.