Microsoft’s new Bing brings new competition, says Atlantic Equities

Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell made no change to his Overweight ratings on Microsoft (MSFT) or Alphabet (GOOGL). Microsoft has unveiled a new Bing, which incorporates OpenAI’s AI capabilities to improve and augment standard search, and while it is too early to determine how impactful this may be on search volume share between Microsoft and Alphabet, the firm thinks that shifts will likely be relatively modest, but that the launch does intensify competition and potentially impact profitability in the search market, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Atlantic Equities thinks the development is "more of a negative for Alphabet" than it is a positive for Microsoft, but feels much of the concern is already reflected in the stock.