Samsung decides to keep Google as its default device search engine after all

Samsung was considering replacing the default search engine for its smartphones from Google to Bing. But according to recent reports, the company has abandoned this idea and decided to keep Google as the default search engine for its phones.

Had Samsung, the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, chosen Bing as its default search engine for Samsung devices over Google, it would've been an unprecedented win for Microsoft's search engine, and a huge loss for Google. 

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Since its launch, Bing has struggled to gain any foothold in the search engine race. In 2022, Google's dominance over the search engine market represented 96% in mobile users, while Bing barely held only 1%. 

The change would've only affected the default browser app within Samsung smartphones. The company was initially unconcerned that it would affect users much, as most of them don't prefer the default browser and opt for Google Chrome, which also comes preinstalled in Samsung phones. 

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Google, an Alphabet-owned company, has been struggling to keep up amid the artificial intelligence revolution that has exploded with the widespread release of generative AI tools in recent months. As OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT, dominates the generative AI craze, other big players, like Microsoft and Google, have been scrambling to compete. 

Microsoft injected a large investment into OpenAI months ago, with the goal of incorporating GPT-4, OpenAI's latest-released large language model, into Bing and other tools. Since then, Bing has gained generative AI capabilities, powered by the largest LLM to be released in combination with internet access.

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This has given Bing new momentum as a search engine, especially since Google's own AI chatbot, Bard, has failed to measure up. 

Even though the discussion has been tabled, the Wall Street Journal reports Samsung isn't permanently excluding Bing as a future option for a default search engine.