SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT)'s co-founder, on Monday said the technology race to win is the development of the top artificially intelligent agent, poised to disrupt search-engine, productivity and online shopping sites.
"You’ll never go to a search site again," he said. "You’ll never go to Amazon."
Speaking at AI Forward 2023, an event in San Francisco hosted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) and SV Angel, Gates said it would disappoint him if Microsoft were not in the running, though there was a 50% chance the top player to emerge will be a startup.
Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc's Google and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Gates said Inflection AI, co-founded by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, impressed him.
Various industry players have worked on building a computer assistant, powered by AI, that consumers can command by speech or text to handle a range of tasks for them.
"Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s a big thing," Gates said.