What is Google?

Google is the world’s most popular search engine, responsible for around 70% of online searches worldwide. Its founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, started the firm in 1995 as a side project while studying at Stanford University in California. Since 2015, it has been a subsidiary of the technology conglomerate Alphabet Inc., where it continues to lead the internet’s search and other business services.

From its start, the company’s growth was rapid and spectacular. Within three years it was handling 200 million searches per day and its name entered the English language as a verb, to google meaning to conduct an internet search. The company’s headquarters are located in Mountain View, California.

The success of Google’s web search engine was augmented by a series of related products and services, including the free software package Gmail and its online office suite Google Docs. In addition, the company operates its own broadband internet service called Google Fiber and produces its own range of mobile devices. The most prominent of these is the Pixel smartphone range, although it also offers a wide selection of laptops under the Chromebook brand.

One of the more interesting aspects of Google’s business model is its use of data gathered by its search engine and other services to deliver targeted advertising to web users. This enables the company to make more money than any of its rivals. The firm spends large sums to secure what it considers to be an edge in the marketplace. For example, in 2003 it paid $102 million for Applied Semantics, the creators of a system that allows web page owners to display ads.

In 2014, it bought British artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepMind, which developed the machine that beat human world champion Lee Sedol in 2016 in the game Go. This was part of a push into the field of high-precision computing to support the development of AI technologies.

During the restructuring of the Google brand into Alphabet in 2015, DeepMind became the company’s AI research arm. It has produced a number of cutting-edge advances, including a system that translates speech into multiple languages and the development of a chatbot that can answer questions in natural language.