The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 35 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Immerman: Google's search monopoly is coming to an end
“My big idea is that the search monopoly, particularly around Google, is coming to an end.”
Immerman: Google hasn't been innovating in search due to monopoly status
“The market has been dominated by Google for close to 25 years at this point, and as a monopoly, they're not really innovating. They're, they have no incentive to, until now.”
Immerman: Google's ad clutter opens door for new search engines
“The irony is that today, What we're all complaining about with Google is that their pages are cluttered with ads on the results, and that creates the opportunity for these new search engines.”
Immerman: Apple could gain 1 billion search users overnight
“They are not investing the capex like Meta and Google and Microsoft and Amazon, but they control a central node to the consumer, and if they wanted to build a search application, the next day they could have a billion users.”
Immerman: Consumer AI battleground will shift from models to UX in 2024
“And my big idea for 20, 24 is the consumer AI battleground is going to move from the model to UX.”
Immerman: AI models are software primitives similar to payment rails
“One framework to consider is that models are just a new primitive to build applications on top of the same way storages or geolocation or payment rails are today.”
Immerman: Defensible AI businesses do not require building proprietary models
“Building a defensible business does not have building a model as a prerequisite.”
Immerman: 10% of consumers name ChatGPT as primary search engine
“10% of consumers, they're now referring to ChatGPT as their search engine of choice.”
Immerman: Perplexity search queries are growing 25% to 30% monthly
“Perplexity, queries are growing 25 to 30% month over month.”
Immerman: Perplexity average query length is 10-11 words vs Google's 2-3
“The average query on perplexity is 10 to 11 words. The average search on Google is two to three keywords.”
Immerman: 60% of consumers used chatbots for recent purchase decisions
“And I saw a survey last week that 60% of consumers for purchase decisions in the last 30 days used a chatbot.”
Immerman: Next wave of AI search will be winner-take-most
“It does not surprise me that the last wave or the next wave will result in a winner-take-most dynamic.”
Immerman: Google AI Overviews has reached 1 billion monthly active users
“Google AI Overviews already has a billion monthly active users.”
Immerman: Meta AI services have reached 500 million monthly active users
“Meta's not far behind. They have five hundred million monthly active users.”
Immerman: Traditional moats will drive long-term winners in consumer AI
“LLMs can be a source of differentiation. Today, they might provide a first-mover advantage, but old-fashioned modes like network effects, high switching costs, scale, and brand are still what will likely win long term.”
Immerman: Access costs for quality AI models will fall
“What's changing now is we expect the costs to access quality models, whether closed source or open source to fall.”
Immerman: Perplexity proves UX value can be built on third-party models
“In the AI context, I'm a fan of perplexity, which is an AI powered research assistant. It does work with third party models. But it also offers a lot of seemingly small features that add up to a compelling user experience. Lower latency, providing sources, sug…”
Immerman: Open-source AI models are heading toward parity with closed-source
“Clem, CEO at Hugging Face, a few days ago, forecasted that in 2024, open source models are going to reach the level of the best closed source models. That may be aggressive for 20, 24, but they are headed towards parity.”
Immerman: Tech-impacted costs fall over time while housing and healthcare rise
“If you look at housing and healthcare, as Mena just said, like prices just go up, up, up to the right and any industry that technology has touched has gone down.”
Immerman: Equity Residential manages 200 housing units per employee using EliseAI
“I know with Equity Residential, one of your customers, they've gotten up to 200 units per employee.”
Immerman: Economic surplus created by technology typically accrues to consumers
“So generally when technology is introduced, you see a surplus and most of that typically goes back to the consumer.”
Immerman: Google antitrust ruling proves default search deals were anti-competitive
“So earlier this year, Google was declared a monopoly. The court ruled that they're spending billions of dollars to phone manufacturers. In the case of Apple, tens of billions of dollars is monopolistic. It's anti-competitive and it's preventing their competito…”
Immerman: Gen AI search offers a much better UX than Google
“If you think about the Google experience as it is today, it's just a long list of links. And the first few are sponsored. They're ads. And I, as a user, when I make a query on Google, I then need to make the decision. I have to sift through the information on …”
Immerman: Standalone vertical AI search apps will thrive in deep domain research
“For the average query on ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google, they're pretty good. You don't need a vertical specific application, but for deep domain research, I can imagine a world in which standalone apps thrive.”
Immerman: Vertical AI search wins through surrounding workflows, not search alone
“And so when I think about vertical search or vertical apps, it's not just about the search, it's about everything around the search.”
Immerman: Consolidation will happen again in general-purpose search
“I think consolidation should be expected in general purpose search because of distribution, because of network effects.”
Immerman: Consumer and enterprise search will blend together in AI
“But I think those two worlds are gonna blend together. Consumer search should not just be limited to what's on the web, and enterprise search should not be limited to just proprietary data. It should have both, and a lot of these AI native services are working…”
Immerman: Search market will remain primarily digital advertising-focused
“So the subscriptions could stick around, but I think this is going to continue to be a digital advertising focused market.”
Immerman: Tech paradigms always progress from technical features to UX
“Over the history of technology paradigms, we often see technology progress and features first, and then a movement toward prioritizing design and experience.”
Alex Immerman: Shared AI experiences will evolve from text to multimodal
“Looking ahead, these shared experiences are going to go from just being text to being multimodal.”
Immerman: Decoupling AI apps and infrastructure makes startup creation easier
“So as the application and infrastructure layers are split, That'll make it a lot easier for new companies to be built. Founders can just build for applications and not have to worry as much about the underlying model as an input to their own company creation.”
Immerman: Google controls 90% of the search market
“They control 90% of the market, but their grip is slipping.”
Immerman: Google approaches $200B annual search revenue with double-digit growth
“They're approaching two hundred billion of revenue annually. They're still growing double digits, highly profitable.”