What is one company that has excelled in 2018 but is destined to struggle in 2019

Google. I wouldn’t say they “excelled” in 2018, especially since their stock was only up 8% year to date. But they haven’t struggled either.

However, they are really banking on artificial intelligence and machine learning to really catapult them to new heights. It’s a risky move, and they’ve definitely make some headway. What’s the problem? I’m not entirely sure that they are solving real needs with this technology, at least not yet.

In May of this year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled a new Google assistant that seamlessly called to schedule an appointment at a hair salon. Great, right? But think about that. Are you really going to trust an AI assistant to make calls for you, and trust that they will get every detail correct?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a promising technology. But there are two huge hurdles here.

1. It has to be useful. I don’t see how a 2 minute phone call is somehow a big nuisance to most people. AI can be a powerful tool but using it to schedule hair appointments or doctor visits isn’t all the exciting to most people
2. It has to interact extremely well with the human on the other end. Humans are complicated, and my guess is that unless someone is very well spoken and predictable, the AI assistant will struggle.

Plus, this technology is still very much in development. It could take a long time to get all the bugs out.

But the real reason why Google is strugggling is this:

Google makes tons of money on ads. And when people start to block those ads, it hurts their bottom line. Of course, they’ve found ways to continue to target users even with the increasing usage of ad blockers, but now there is competition. [1]Amazon wants in on the ad game, and with the public sentiment souring on internet giants like Google and Facebook owning so much of their private information, the increasing market competition may force companies to be better stewards of user privac. This could crease a perfect storm that challenges Google in a way that they have not yet seen.

So, I expect 2019 to be a rather tough year for Google. Bookmark this answer to see if I’m right or wrong.