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Apr 30, 2023

Bill Gates lays AI tombstone on Amazon and Google

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates thinks two pillars of Big Tech are as

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates thinks two pillars of Big Tech are as susceptible to the downside of artificial intelligence as the potentially millions of workers who could be displaced by the technology.

In a chat Monday at an event hosted by Goldman Sachs and SV Angel, Gates predicted that the sprint to create a top-level AI agent for search engines and online-shopping sites could leave Alphabet Inc.'s GOOGL, +0.07% GOOG, +0.16% Google and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.66% in the dust.

"You’ll never go to a search site again," he said. "You’ll never go to Amazon."

He added: "Whoever wins the personal agent, that's a big thing."

Of course, who will establish the agent first is anyone's guess, said Gates, who added that it could be a startup and not Microsoft MSFT, +0.47%.

"I’d be disappointed if Microsoft didn't come in there. But I’m impressed with a couple of startups, including [LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman's] Inflection," he said.

Microsoft is folding OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot into its portfolio of products, from the Bing search engine and Windows operating system to the Azure cloud service and productivity apps.

Some Big Tech companies racked up scores of AI mentions on their latest earnings calls, so by contrast, Amazon has been quieter about its efforts.

Jon Swartz is a senior reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco, covering many of the biggest players in tech, including Netflix, Facebook and Google. Jon has covered technology for more than 20 years, and previously worked for Barron's and USA Today. Follow him on Twitter @jswartz.