Eric Siu discusses whether Google's new AI Mode in Chrome will destroy SEO. Google's AI integration gives it massive data advantages and could threaten startups building text-to-video and image generation tools, especially if Google bundles AI features into free products to drive ad revenue.
Oh, did you see how Google AI Mode is going to get super popular now? It's already actually growing in popularity. They have over 100 million active users, but they're integrating into Chrome. So it doesn't matter where you are on the web, you can get help from Google AI Mode for anything you want.
The funny thing about this Chrome, this new Chrome now, it's basically what all these other browsers were doing. Comment, Dia, all these other ones. And it's like, oh, summarize this YouTube video. Oh, do this shopping for me on Instacart or whatever. And Google's going to have— Chrome's going to have so much more data on you now that their ads are going to become way stronger.
Yes. I think Google AI mode is going to become extremely popular. It's going to go from 100 million active users to hundreds and hundreds of millions of active users, if not a billion, really fast.
I think Google's in a really good spot, dude. You got Quantum, you got Waymo, you got— you got— they're in the lead.
They're in the lead.
Yeah. Nano Banana, V3, everything. Yeah.
They have really good products. I was talking to an AI video creation company, text-to-video, and I'm an investor in a fund and the fund invested in this company. So they're just picking my brain. They do good revenue, not like $1 million, $2 million, like substantially more. They're not at $100, but you get the point, right? And we were talking to them, they're still growing at a really rapid pace. I was like, I'm like, your biggest threat, I'm like, you guys need a free version of your product. And I was like, you need this as quick as possible. And I'm like, your biggest threat is Google, I think Google's video generation and image generation products are amazing. I think they're— I've used a lot of the ones in the space. I actually think Google has the best video and image generation products out there.
I agree. And they're actually doing a better job of marketing these now because they have multiple Twitter accounts, one for NotebookLM, one for Via Lake, like one for Nano Banana. And they're actually getting a lot of impressions and they're cross-promoting each other now. So they're starting to pick it up on the marketing side for these products.
Yeah, but hands down I was like, they're going to crush you and if you don't believe it, even if you're growing because the market's big, they're going to crush you because they can just make everything for free due to the fact that if it costs them $2 billion to run it for free, but it generates them extra $10 billion in ad revenue, that's a huge profitable win for them.
They'll do it all day, yeah.
All day long.
Dude, this is why we talked about this. Google has one of the best distribution in the world. They just sucked at marketing for a little bit. They're getting better now. Uber, as an example, they're actually transitioning to this. They have all this distribution. They're partnering up with like Waymo. They're trying to get Elon—
Uber's partnering with Waymo?
Yeah, they partnered up with Waymo. They're trying to partner up with like all the—
You sure that's not Lyft? Lyft just announced a partnership with Waymo.
No, they're trying to partner up with autonomous vehicles now, and they're trying to partner up with different fleets. So imagine if you have like a fleet of cars in the future, you can add it to the Uber network. And I think they're going to try to convince Elon to do the same thing with robotaxis, 'cause it's like, it's a win-win-win for everyone, right? And their whole thing now is, you know, it's whatever humans need, we're going to add it to our distribution network. So like Travis Kalanick, the co-founder of Uber, he has Cloud Kitchen. So they're adding that into Uber as well. And so it just goes to show you that distribution is very much king as long as you know how to market this stuff.
Yes. And if you look at some of the biggest companies in the world, like the auto space, Uber's there, or transportation, they don't own cars. You look at Airbnb, they don't own any properties.
Dude, Marriott doesn't even own a lot of their hotels anymore.
A lot of the hotel chains, or a lot of the popular ones like the Hiltons, the Marriotts, the St. Regises, although St. Regis I believe is owned by Marriott, they have a licensing deal with the person who owns a property. Like even here, we're in a Mandarin Oriental recording this. Do you know how much of the building the Mandarin Oriental owns?
Like less than 10%.
Zero.
Oh, 0%.
It's a management deal.
Well, I am right, less than 10%. Yeah.
Yeah, that's true. They don't own the building at all. A lot of the deals are management deals. And I know this because in my HOA, I got a notice saying for like the agenda, you know, discussion of the renewal of the Mandarin Oriental. And then right after it was like approving the renewal of the Mandarin Oriental. Yeah, the name.
Because the name was always changed. Like you used to live in a different Mandarin in Vegas and it changed to Waldorf Astoria.
It was after the, not the P.F. Chang's, what's a quick Asian fast food place?
Panda Express.
Panda Express. The Panda Express guy bought The Mandarin Oriental in Las Vegas. He lived in the building too at the same time. He then changed it to Waldorf Astoria because he felt it would be better to draw in more people into the hotel.
Interesting. Did it work?
I don't know. Because when I sold my unit, because it was part residential, as you know, the bottom half was hotel. The residential was owned, of course, by the people who bought the properties. He bought the hotel side as well as the common areas. I sold my unit when it was the Mandarin. And the, one of the main reasons I bought there was because of the Asian food and Indian food. And it was this comfort food for me.
So I visited, um, Alex and Leila when they were, I don't know if they're still there, but they are there. Yeah. So to me it felt like the same thing. So I'm not sure if it changed.
The restaurants have changed. I don't know if they changed a tea lounge and stuff like that, but, um, some of it's a little bit changed because they got rid of like the Asian theme.
Yeah.
