Google and Microsoft are in an AI arms race – who wins could change how we use the internet

Search engines have been a major part of our online experience since the early 1990s, when the booming growth of the world wide web created a need to sort and present information in response to user queries. The first users to traverse the "information superhighway" had a simple job of it. It was akin to pootling along to your local supermarket: you knew the roads, where to turn off, and how to get there. But the exponential growth of the web meant that it quickly became impossible for people to remember where they'd found that pertinent bit of information they wanted. The main road became ensnared in a spider's web of byways.