Microsoft CEO Says AI ‘Vicious Cycle’ Will Boost Google; Meta and OpenAI’s Other Rivalry

CEOs often speak from both sides of their mouth, depending on who their audience is. On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella painted a scary picture of how Google could multiply its power in the age of artificial intelligence. His doom and gloom comments, made before a federal judge in Washington, contrasted with an upbeat Nadella from February who said that Microsoft’s Bing search—then being boosted by technology from OpenAI—would “make Google dance.”

Nadella had every reason to try to paint the most extreme picture for the judge, who is overseeing the U.S. government’s antitrust trial against Google. Government lawyers are asking for a ruling that would essentially void Google’s deal to make its search engine the default in Apple’s Safari browser. That would give Nadella an opening to win the deal for Microsoft, though Nadella’s comments also suggested Microsoft shareholders might have to stomach enormous losses for the privilege.

The advent of AI chatbots could solidify Google’s web dominance in a “vicious cycle,” Nadella testified. For instance, Google wants to sign deals with websites that give the company exclusive access to their data for the purpose of training its AI models, he said. In exchange, Nadella added, the websites would get higher placement in Google search results. (And better placement when Google’s AI renders answers, one might assume.) That would amount to Google using its existing heft to “write a check” to website publishers to stop them from sharing data with competitors like Microsoft, he said.