Google, which has long enjoyed Internet search and maps hegemony, faces OpenAI and Apple aiming for its core business

"We are testing SearchGPT, a prototype of new search features designed to combine the strength of our AI models with information from the web to give you fast and time answers with clear and relevant sources."

That's artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI's description of its new SearchGPT tech, which is now ready, and said to do exactly what the name implies: find stuff on the web. OpenAI has licensed content from The Atlantic, Associated Press, News Corp and Springer and other publishers, so yes, Google might just feel the heat a little here.

Particularly so as OpenAI is talking about integrating SearchGPT in ChatGPT at some stage. If the conversational AI chatbot gets a good web search function and the ability to directly answer queries in real time, it's easy to imagine that it'll become a "sticky" site for users.

It also looks like publishers will have a fair few controls over their content in SearchGPT, and be able to opt out of becoming AI training fodder. This as opposed to the more passive relationship publishers have with Google, in which they are at the mercy of search and Internet advertising giant's whims while trying to second guess how to remain indexed and visible.

How SearchGPT will sit with its big investor Microsoft's search engine Bing, which had an AI infusion last year using OpenAI tech (and some remodelling since then), is up in the air at the moment.

That said, how well SearchGPT itself will perform once it's available is also in the remains-to-be-seen department, as its invite-only for now. Google's attempt at putting AI into search didn't go terrible well in May; AI Overviews for search will forever be associated with pizza recipes including glue.

Another lucrative Google property is under attack as well: online maps. Apple Maps might have had a terrible start in life over a decade ago, but over the years, it has become way (sorry) better. You can now use Apple Maps on the road with Apple CarPlay, and... wait for it, there's a web version now. In fact, it's quite amazing it's taken Apple so long to come up with a web version of Maps, but there you have it.

Apple Maps is in beta preview at the moment, and in English only. It works in Apple's Safari browser, and Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge as well.

Google Maps is a lucrative endeavour, free for users and bringing in billions in revenue for Alphabet from ads, and business tie ups like being able to book rideshare vehicles. It's kind of a super app, one of those things that you wonder how you survived without it in the past. The way you can use Google Maps to get through the regular Auckland traffic jams is pure gold, for example.

It's a very powerful application, so much so that some of its functionality is getting weaponised. Users are reporting business location pins being moved, either to somewhere they're not, or clustered together to make them hard to find.

For small businesses relying on Google Maps for customers to find them, such malicious "map hacks" are just bad. A competing business could shift your one to where it isn't, for example, meaning customers and deliveries are led astray.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to stop this, as Google continues to let users to supply edits for Maps locations. Keep an eye on Google Maps for your business location in other words.