When Google started 20 years ago, the mission was to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. That seemed like an incredibly ambitious mission at the time-even considering that in 1998 the web consisted of just 25 million pages.
“Fast forward to today, and now we index hundreds of billions of pages in our index, more information than all the libraries in the world could hold. We’ve grown to serve people all over the world, offering Search in more than 150 languages and over 190 countries,” says Google’s head of search Ben Gomes. What Google has done with Search is only one example of the profound impact it has had on internet users over the last 20 years. It may well have a far greater impact in the next 20, with new technologies such as AI and AR set to proliferate across various applications and devices.
‘Bets’ on future
“I think Google will transform itself drastically in the next 20 years, essentially because transformation is an essential part of Google’s DNA. The shift from being a ‘one trick pony’ — with search — when they started off in the late nineties, to dominance in operating systems (Android) and mail (GMail), to navigation (Maps) and video (YouTube) — has been a journey of consistent reinvention,” says Lloyd Mathias, former HP and Motorola executive and a telecom industry veteran. Google set itself up for further transformation in 2015 with the creation of Alphabet — to take ‘bets’ on the future.
But there could be challenges for the internet giant that can come in the way of its future growth. “One of things that is hurting Google is the attack on data access. As consumers become more aware and educated about how their digital data will be used, there could be a backlash. Most of Google’s existing business model is around data,” says Sanchit Vir Gogia, Founder
According to Gogia, while Google has taken good measures in the enterprise segment for its cloud services, it still has a long way to go.
“Google has to ensure it becomes more relevant to not just the CIO of a company but also to CMO and HR functions. It does not have much to offer when it comes to market tech and sales tech,” says Gogia, adding that the tech giant has to do much more in the mobile devices space and content to compete better with the likes of Apple and Amazon. All of this can add up to big opportunity for the tech company.
“With increasing pressure from regulatory authorities — given Google’s dominance in search; and increasing competition from the likes of Amazon and Apple in the on-line advertising and media domains, transformation will only accelerate,” says Mathias. “I see the big Google plays springing from the sizeable focus and investments in AI & Machine Learning, resulting in moves to enhance ‘task assistance’ — whether through speech and gesture recognition, translation, navigation — to help humankind in general,” he added.