After more than two decades, or more specifically, twenty-four years since Google launched on September 4, 1998, it has relentlessly dominated the Search Industry, acquiring and possessing more than 90% of the industry's market share and preserving its status as a global monopoly, with zero fear of a contender worthy enough to supplant it—at least, until now.
On November 30, 2022, the world was introduced to ChatGPT, a novel new AI application with unprecedented natural language capabilities never before seen in a consumer product. Sure, we've had our fair share of lackluster chatbots; most technophiles will remember the 2016 bot-hype era as one filled with both promise and massive disappointment.
After all, we anticipated an array of futuristic and highly functional messenger bots that would transform the internet. Instead, we were punished with Tay, Microsoft's infamous racist and sexist "hate-bot".
Scientists and engineers have certainly made substantial progress since the early days of ELIZA, but 2022 was different. OpenAI, the parent company behind ChatGPT, achieved a breakthrough. So much so that in just five short days, the service exceeded one million users, surpassing Instagram, the previous record holder, who achieved the same feat in 2.5 months.
And if that wasn't staggering enough, ChatGPT went on to seize another record from Instagram by surpassing an astonishing one hundred million users just two months post-launch. To put this into perspective, it took Instagram more than two years to reach the same milestone.