The Circus 2020 Survey – Updated Results and Predictions for Two Generative AI Platforms: Google Cloud, Alphabet, and The Circus
We have updated our findings and are building on our initial report. This is the second wave of the survey.
The survey was done in December of 2023 with our partner, The Circus. The Circus specializes in original trend research, thought leadership, and strategic brand positioning that are based in a human- data-centered approach.
Special thanks to these individuals who helped bring this survey to life:Andrew Melnizek – VP and GM, The Verge and PolygonEdwin Wong – SVP, Insights and Research, Vox MediaSebastian Fernandez – Founder, The CircusDiana Young – Designer, D-ConstructedJacob Kastrenakes – Executive Editor, The VergeKara Verlaney – Managing Editor, The VergeNilay Patel – Editor-in-Chief, The VergeHelen Havlak – Publisher, The Verge
Alphabet’s Pichai’s had milestones to boast about too. He told analysts in a separate call that more than 1 million developers are using Google Cloud’s generative AI tools and that 60 percent of generative AI startups backed by investors are Google Cloud customers. Generative AI is also boosting the ad campaigns of Google’s advertising clients.
Both companies reported better-than-expected quarterly sales and profit on Thursday. And the stock prices of both soared on the results, with Alphabet further buoyed by its new plans to buy back more shares and issue its first-ever dividend.
What Can Microsoft Do to Support Generative AI? Microsoft Already Has Two Million Customers, Says Nadella in a Financially Bullish Discussion
In his call with financial analysts on Thursday, Nadella stated that Microsoft has over two million customers for the generative machine learning tool, Copilot. That’s up from 1.3 million customers a quarter ago.
Among Fortune 500 companies, 60 percent are using Copilot for Microsoft Office 365, a virtual assistant that uses generative AI to help workers write emails and documents, and 65 percent are using a Microsoft Azure Cloud service that enables them to access generative AI software from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. “Azure has become a port of call for pretty much anybody who is doing an AI project,” Nadella said. Microsoft invested $13 billion in OpenAI, and it has helped win some clients.
The buzz of interest in artificial Intelligence services helped drive revenue for Microsoft’s biggest unit, the cloud services, up by seven percentage points compared to a year ago. It gained cloud market share. The number of $100 million cloud deals that Microsoft landed increased 80 percent during the quarter compared to the same period a year ago and $10-million deals doubled.
There is a $20 per month subscription plan announced in February that provides access to the company’s most advanced artificial intelligence chatbot.
On the core business of search, Pichai didn’t provide revenue figures related to experiments to summarize query results. If people spend less time doing more refined searches, the more opportunities to show search ads will be lost. It is possible that the types of ads shown could have to change.
Picahi expressed little concern on either front. “We are very, very confident we can manage the cost of how to serve these queries,” he said. “I am comfortable and confident that we’ll be able to manage the monetization transition here as well. It will play out over time.”
Had Microsoft Learned to Rethink its Investment in Cloud Computing, Servers and Data Centers? Thursday’s results show that Microsoft had a further along with it
It spent about the same about the same amount—-around $12 billion—as Microsoft investing in infrastructure like servers and datacenters last quarter. Thursday’s results and comments show that Microsoft is further along in delivering a payoff.
