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May 26, 2025 18 mins

In light of Sam Altman’s acquisition of iPhone and Apple Watch designer Jony Ive’s startup, there’s speculation about the development of new AI-powered devices that could reshape the way we communicate and engage digitally. This week’s episode of Accelerated Velocity looks at increasing competition amongst major players in AI development–from updates in the AI-powered search race to a discussion on the future of handheld devices. 

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Chapters

00:00 - Intro  

01:37 - An AEO success story

02:28 - The Importance of Schema Markup for search visibility

05:40 - Emerging AI Browsers and Search Trends

07:50 - Apple’s contract with Google 

09:23 - Google's Response to AI Competition

10:44 - The ‘next wave’ of AI

11:36 - Is Jony Ive working on a groundbreaking AI device?

12:39 - The future of communication devices

15:54 - AI Glasses–yes or no? 

18:27 - Outro

Sources

“Google Unveils A.I. Chatbot, Signaling a New Era for Search” by Tripp Mickle for The New York Times

“OpenAI Unites With Jony Ive in $6.5 Billion Deal to Create A.I. Devices” by Mike Isaac and Cade Metz for The New York Times 

“Details leak of Jony Ive’s ambitious OpenAI device” by Ryan Daws for AI News

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:29):
And while those searches are still a small fraction of the entire search volume, it's not something that somebody should just sort of rest their head on and say, okay, we're fine for a while because you're not.

(00:51):
Welcome to Accelerated Velocity, the podcast that helps you move faster, smarter, and more strategically in the rapidly evolving world of AI. We'll break down the latest AI news and innovations and explore how they impact your marketing, sales, and business growth. We'll dive into the practical use cases, unpack new tools, and cut through the noise so you and your team can adopt with confidence.

(01:16):
I'm Grace Matthews, director of content at inbound TV, a business development agency and HubSpot solutions partner dedicated to driving sustainable business growth. Each week, I'll be here with Peter Malik, our CEO and founder. Join us as we make sense of what's changing and what to do about it.
Hello and welcome to Accelerated Velocity. This is Grace. And today Peter and I are going to be talking about continuing competition in AI. Yeah. So this is a really interesting subject, especially in light of some news that came out this week. And and we are recording this on May 22nd, just so you know, because a week may go by and it's not going to be news at all.

(02:02):
It'd be something more exciting. But but there's some really interesting news. Grace, I want to start off with, just talking about a little success that we had in context of conversations that we've had before. And if you've been listening to our past episodes, we've been talking a lot about Aiteo. And essentially that is AI's version of SEO and replacing the traditional chat of Google, Bing, and the other smaller players with, really a question based, answer system and very, very different from what the typical Google search results would be.

(02:41):
And we've talked about that quite a bit. And, I want to tell you about a client of ours who really was on this very, very early. And we built, number of landing pages for them. And the first thing and I don't know if we've discussed this specifically here, but essentially the doorway to get into AI, search the door that you have to go through is schema markup.

(03:04):
And so schema markup is a way of organizing a website. And AI number one looks for schema markup on a website. If they don't find it, they're kind of on to the next site because it's easier for them to analyze and make use of data on a site that's been built with schema markup. So the, the site that we worked on is kind of like, an Upwork for based on the blockchain, really, really interesting company.

(03:33):
And specifically, we did some pages about finding, a Python coder in North America or in Great Britain or whatever it may be. And so I'm looking at the search that I just did on Google, which was an AI results search. The search was how much does it cost to hire the DevOps engineer? And it returned as it usually returns a bullet pointed list of various points.

(04:00):
And if I look at the right side of that search result, the top results that they drew from is the landing page that we built. And again, it's specifically because, it used schema markup. And then as far as the content of the page itself, it was built with AI search in mind. And in fact, it came up as, as a number one result.

(04:25):
And this link there to actually get somebody to a site which a lot of searches right now just just deliver information with as a column zero click searches, which is because nobody clicks on anything and they leave. So, I just want to mention that, you know, we're always looking for validation. We're looking for validation of what we're trying to do to stay up to date and be ahead of this massive change in AI.

(04:50):
And so that validation in this work that we did quite a few months ago is really, really gratifying. And Peter, can I just ask you, for those of us who might not know what resources are needed to achieve a well-functioning schema markup. So. Well, I think a great place to start is schema.org has a resource where it will actually go into your site and look for schema markup, and so you can identify if the developer or you may not know if you even have it on your site, you might has added it.

(05:22):
And also what he's added a two now an AI search. There are certain things, for instance, an FAQ page. That's the type of content in your site that you really want schema markup on a pricing page? Not so much. So it's not like you have to enable schema markup for every part of your site, but you really there are certain things that are very eco friendly, and that's what you really need to have schema markup on.

(05:50):
So that's a great place to start. And as far as if you need help with it, you know you can reach out to an agency like ours. And there are a number of others all around. You know, I think doing an API search will bring up some interesting stuff. Awesome. Thank you for that overview. And I know that we're also seeing increasing competition brewing with this kind of like AI driven search race, especially with some pressures on Google.

(06:15):
Should we dive into that now? Peter. Absolutely. And I think that the number one on my list is the common browser, which we mentioned last week, but that's a browser being launched or actually has been launched by perplexity. And, unfortunately, I'm still on the waiting list. I don't know about you, Grace. That's so. We haven't had a chance far down on the waiting list, and I hope I'm in the top million, but we'll see that.

(06:39):
But anyway, that's it's something I'm really interested in simply because it's been designed around AIO and AI search results. And I think it very likely is a big step forward. As far as not so much like with the Google ecosystem, you have Chrome. Chrome is a very, very well-established browser, but Chrome was not built specifically for AI search and comet has been.

(07:04):
So I'm really interested in seeing what the results are and how that impacts us. And it really sort of, you know, ups the game for for Google and Chrome. Yeah. And I'll just mention that on top of that, for those of us who still are on the waiting list, it seems like there are an increasing amount of people just maybe even without actively thinking about it.

(07:27):
Turning to ChatGPT or perplexities, chat based model or other lens to conduct searches that are then going out onto the web to gather information. So even for those of us who might not be using a completely a based browser yet, there are still these kind of building pressures competing with traditional Google search and Google's AI overview and all of that.

(07:52):
Absolutely. And while those searches are still a small fraction of the entire search volume, it's not something that somebody should just sort of rest their head on and say, okay, we're fine for a while because you're not. I mean, this could change literally overnight. Yeah. And on top of that, not super recent at this point, but some other news that we haven't covered since our last discussion on HBO is the news that Apple might not be renewing their contract with Google to default to using Google on Safari, regardless of whether that happens or not.

(08:28):
I think it kind of signals to the way that things are shifting. Yeah, I think, you know, part of Google's model is to make everybody totally dependent on Google. And and honestly, I mean, our company, we're on Gmail, you know, business Gmail and it would be really, really hard for us to leave that ecosystem right now. They have been successful in making us dependent on their platform, which isn't a great feeling, honestly.

(08:57):
But but that's the reality. And I think that Apple, wanting to get away from that ecosystem where if you do a Google search search that ends up on Google by default on Safari, it's actually going to have a little pop up. It's like, hey, don't you want to do this on Chrome? So, you know, Apple cut a deal where the people who are providing the content are also saying, like, you don't need this browser anymore, that's a bad deal.

(09:22):
It's a really bad deal. And so I think that, then, considering one of the, you know, sort of from the ground up little, is a great move on on their part. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that whole thing with the pop ups is not just bad for Apple, but it's bad for the user experience as well.
So, I mean, from from my perspective, we're also seeing users actively seeking out alternative options, which is an interesting shake up. That being said, I would say Google is still in the race with the use of AI overview two days ago, which would be May 20th at the time of recording this, they release AI mode in the US, which is a new chat bot style search mode.

(10:04):
So that's going to enhance that experience of chat based search even further. They're also driving a lot of progress on Gemini with their other AI tool, notebook LM so they are still, you know, working quickly to keep up with these rapid changes. But I know that you have thoughts on that Peter as well. Yeah, I mean actually so we were trying out this new AI search on Google just before we started recording this.

(10:32):
And in fact, one of the links that Google said to click wasn't on the search page. So it's maybe rolled out, but it's kind of rolled out and I'm sure that will change that quickly. But that that's where it's at. But yeah, I mean, I think Google is a behemoth. It's one of the biggest companies in the world.
And the fact that they're able to move as fast as they are in, in all of these areas. And there are areas with, you know, notebook LM, which is just like from outer space when, you know, when they when they dropped that it was just beyond anything anybody else was working on. It was just, you know, there's some really serious minds at Google, obviously, that have been forever.

(11:10):
But at the same time, are they able to visualize and, and and understand the next wave of AI, which, which will include devices. It will include things like the content browser. And that's that's really my question is like you know, we we've talked about, you know, your code generation Grace, which is digital natives. Right. And now we're kind of looking at AI natives and the companies that are really going to make the biggest impact are they weren't born with AI as something they did every day.

(11:41):
But but nevertheless, you could call them I need a because that's where they live and that's what they understand. And they they've come by it honestly. So that would be my question. Is Google going to be able to keep up with the AI native natives? You know, maybe they'll hire all of them. But you know, and that brings up the big news of the week.
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned devices because that was definitely on my radar for today. Altman acquired Johnny Ive's startup and and his entire team for I can't remember what what was it, 6.5 billion? 6.2 billion. But who's going to you know, who's going to quibble over a few hundred million? And so, Johnny, I was the original iPhone and Apple Watch designer.

(12:26):
There's some speculation about what he might be working on for open AI, which, by the way, is a it's a non-exclusive contract. So the startup will continue to work on other projects as well. But there is a lot of speculation that the work will be regarding some sort of augmented reality device that Intex information from a user's surroundings via a microphone, maybe via camera, and connects to users phones to do what we don't exactly know yet, but likely perform a number of assistant style tasks based on the user's experience.

(13:03):
Yeah, and I think I don't even take it a step further than that. I mean, we don't know exactly what this is, but where it's headed is really replacing our communication devices as we know it that, you know, the Apple Watch or, you know, Fitbit or whatever, you know, smartwatch, you want to use iPhone, all of the Android devices that I would speculate that they're that that's the big play is they're really not just looking at something that attaches to a smartphone but replaces the smartphone.

(13:33):
And that could change everything for a company like Apple, for a company like Google is, they're so invested in the Android ecosystem, but, you know, it will just sort of add to the soon army of change that we're in right now. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And, I'll speak as somebody who's used almost exclusively Apple devices for years, including a couple times when I tried to move away from that and get something other than a MacBook Pro or something other than an iPhone, and kept coming back to those tools, because that's what I knew.

(14:05):
I think it's really interesting that we're entering this era where there's arguably going to be more user choice, not just with the the apps that were turning to, but potentially even the interfaces that were gravitating towards to kind of get the most ideal user experience out of all of these new AI tools that are arising. Yeah. And as somebody who, you know, my history, I was building IBM clones, as a side hustle like in the late 80s.

(14:40):
And, and then again, you know, my history is a musician. And so around 2000, I wanted to record on my computer and IBM, Microsoft operating system was not happening. It just was almost impossible. And so that's where I got my first at Mac, and, I bought a little ProTools, interface at the time was kind of their entry level model and approach approached the software, and I was off to the races and never looked back.

(15:11):
And I've never used anything but an Apple device for whatever it was 26 years, probably something like that. So would you personally rethink that if something came out that totally reshaped the way you're interfacing with a digital device that you carried around everywhere? Absolutely. You know, I think that like, Apple has made amazing products. They've fallen behind in some ways.

(15:33):
I mean, Siri is like an ancient computer that's on some post apocalyptic world that just doesn't really know what's going on right now. And it's amazing to me that it's like it's ten years old, I think ten years old, and I still can't pronounce a street. Right. And I'm ready for the next thing, you know. I mean, I kind of I've kind of rogue in the way that I don't necessarily want to do business with the biggest company in the world, you know, which would include Amazon and Apple and, and a couple others.

(16:06):
So I'm excited about whatever's going to disrupt it. And it's not whatever whatever's going to disrupt or it's going to be a tiny company. It's it's probably going to be a similar company, but at the same time, I mean, that's the cycle and I embrace it. So I want to bring up, something a little bit on the wackier side, which is the wide variety of AI and augmented reality glasses.

(16:29):
I don't know if you've been seeing this, Peter, but I'm seeing tons of ads for the meta glasses. I personally would not go out and buy a pair of meta glasses at this point, or probably any time in the foreseeable future. I know that Google and OpenAI and Apple are all trying to compete with these AI glasses that kind of, you know, they can like, identify information about your surroundings and connect you to search to get answers.

(16:58):
And you have questions about something. Which would you try out? Those AI glasses, Peter Santa Ray-Bans. But you know, it's interesting, right? I mean, people want to interact with the world and in a real way, I think at this point. So having goggles on, it's not something that a large portion of the population is really that excited about.
And, I don't know about you, but I, I'm, I'm one of the population that's not excited, but but again, it's interesting to see like, you know, the demos for that Apple whatever they would call or whatever they're still called glasses where like amazing. It's like, okay, I got a computer in front of my face and I don't have to be sitting here in front of the computer.

(17:39):
But at the same time, it's the I guess the excitement wears off those things as soon as people start to either buy them and not use them or buy them and experience quality of life problems because they're lost in them. So I have to say, I was looking at the timer on this and I think that we've like surpassed, optimal goal, which is to not be boring and get in, get you some good information and get out.

(18:04):
And here we are a long time later and we're still in. So I think we better get out. Awesome. Fair enough. Peter. And I'll just let everybody know as always that you can find a summary and timestamps and links to our website and newsletter in the show notes. So that's all there for you. And thank you for listening to this week's episode of Accelerated Velocity.

(18:25):
We will see you next week.
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