Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares have stalled recently after the tech giant’s stock reached fresh highs for the year in early February as OpenAI's artificial intelligence (AI) robot ChatGPT captured investor attention.
Microsoft shares had edged down about 1% at US$268.94 in the early afternoon on Wednesday.
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TickMill Group market analyst James Harte noted that Microsoft has been riding thick and fast waves around ChatGPT, in which it is heavily invested.
“On any given day, depending on what you are reading, AI is either about to take over the world and cause mass joblessness or instead implode and fade away,” he said. “ChatGPT is very much at the forefront of this situation.”
Could Bing unseat Google as ‘the king of search engines?’
Harte noted that with ChatGPT recently integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine, there has been huge discourse around the potential for ChatGPT to help Bing unseat Google as the king of search engines.
“However, in recent days there have been some discouraging headlines suggesting that ChatGPT is not faring well within its new role,” he said.
“The Independent newspaper in the UK reported that the software has been glitching, insulting users, spreading misinformation and even questioning its own existence.”
There’s clearly still some way to go before ChatGPT can handle the same volume or search traffic required to unset Google, Harte concluded.
“With Google’s own ChatGPT equivalent Bard suffering similar mishaps, it seems we are at the dawn of a new cold-war style AI arms race between tech companies,” he said.
“Given the massive spending going into AI and the huge cross-applications for the technology, whoever succeeds in getting this right stands to reap huge gains for shareholders.”
Contact the author at emily.jarvie@proactiveinvestors.com
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