During the trial, Nadella acknowledged the immense challenges of the internet search market, referring to it as “the biggest no-fly zone” in Silicon Valley. He elaborated on the limitations of artificial intelligence’s ability to reshape the market, even with Microsoft’s substantial investments in OpenAI.
This marked a departure from Nadella’s earlier enthusiasm during the rollout of Bing, where he had hinted at it being a “new day” in search. Now, Nadella attributed his earlier optimism to the perspective of someone with a modest 3 percent share of the search market, jesting that he had aspired to achieve a 3.5 percent share.
Nadella’s Balancing Act
As of August 2023, third-party data indicated that Microsoft’s share of the search market had seen minimal growth since the introduction of AI features in Bing. Google’s lead trial counsel, John Schmidtlein, argued that Microsoft’s stagnation was a result of its own missteps in the search market, rather than Google’s dominance.
Nadella countered this argument by highlighting the entrenched nature of Google’s position. He emphasized that for many users, Google is the default and most accessible choice, forming a daily habit akin to brushing one’s teeth. Nadella stressed that changing this habit would require altering default settings.
