Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, recently spoke at AI Forward 2023, an event in San Francisco. He believes that the development of the top artificially intelligent agent is the technology race to win. This agent has the potential to disrupt search engines, productivity, and online shopping sites, and Gates thinks that whoever wins this race will have a big advantage.
Gates also said that he would be disappointed if Microsoft were not in the running for this race, although there is a 50% chance that a startup will emerge as the top player. Gates was impressed by Inflection AI, co-founded by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman.
Various industry players have been working on building a computer assistant that is powered by AI. This assistant can handle a range of tasks for consumers who can command it by speech or text. Gates believes that whoever wins this personal agent race will have a significant advantage.
Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google, and Microsoft did not respond immediately to requests for comment. Gates said that this technology will change how we use search sites and Amazon, stating that “you’ll never go to a search site again” or “you’ll never go to Amazon.”
