San Francisco: TikTok’s threat to Google’s business isn’t just limited to YouTube, but major Google services including Search and Maps are also being affected by the growing preference for social media and video. As TechCrunch reports, Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president who runs Google’s knowledge and information organization, made reference to popular social apps in an extensive conversation at Fortune’s Brainstorm tech conference about the future of Google’s products and the use of artificial intelligence.
In a discussion about the evolution of search, he noted somewhat outrageously that younger users were often turning to apps like Instagram and TikTok instead of Google Search or Maps for search purposes. (Also read: Google offered to divest its ad-tech business to avoid anti-trust lawsuit: Report
“We keep learning time and again that new internet users don’t have the expectations and mindset that we have become accustomed to,” Raghavan was quoted as saying. He also said that “the questions they ask are completely different”.
According to the report, these users do not type in keywords, but instead search for content in new, more immersive ways, he said., (Also read: Google Doodle celebrates deepest picture of the universe ever taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, says ‘picture is worth a thousand worlds’)
“In our study, like about 40 percent of young people, when they’re looking for a place to have lunch, they don’t turn to Google Maps or Search,” he said. “They go to TikTok or Instagram,” he said. The tech giant confirmed to the tech website that Raghavan’s comments were based on internal research, which included a survey of US users aged 18 to 24.