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Google announced the release of Bard, a conversational chatbot, on Monday, setting up an artificial intelligence showdown with Microsoft, which has invested billions in the developers of ChatGPT, a language app that convincingly mimics human writing.
ChatGPT, developed by the San Francisco-based company OpenAI, has caused a stir with its ability to write essays, poems, or programming code on demand in seconds, sparking widespread fears of cheating or the extinction of entire professions.
Microsoft announced its support for OpenAI last month and has begun to integrate ChatGPT features into its Teams platform, with plans to adapt the app to its Office suite and Bing search engine.
The possibility of Bing inclusion shifted attention to Google and speculation that the company’s world-dominating search engine may face unprecedented competition from an AI-powered rival.
According to media reports, Google designated ChatGPT’s overnight success as a “code red” threat, with founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page — who left several years ago — called back in to brainstorm ideas and expedite a response.
The pressure to act was heightened by Alphabet’s disappointing earnings last week, which fell short of investor expectations. The company announced last month that it would lay off 12,000 employees in order to focus more on AI projects.
Google’s announcement came on the eve of Microsoft’s AI-related launch event, indicating that the two tech titans will compete over the technology, also known as generative AI.
“Generative AI is a game changer, and just as the internet sank the networking titans that came before it (AOL, CompuServe, etc.), it has the potential to change the competitive dynamic for search and information,” said independent tech analyst Rob Enderle.
“Google still relies heavily on the fact that their search engine is the most widely used, but this could change that, relegating them to history,” he added.
‘Excellent responses’
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a blog post on Monday that Google’s Bard conversational AI would be released for testing, with plans to make it more widely available to the public “in the coming weeks.”
Google’s Bard, which has been in development for several years, is based on LaMDA, the company’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications system.
“Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models,” Pichai said of the technology that powers ChatGPT-like AI.
“It uses web information to provide fresh, high-quality responses,” he added.
Prior to the release of ChatGPT in late November, Google had been hesitant to release its own language-based AI, fearing the reputational risk of releasing technology that wasn’t ready.
Pichai insisted that Bard’s responses would “meet a high bar for quality, safety, and groundedness in real-world data.”
Bard, like ChatGPT, would use a limited version of its base language model to save computing power and reach a wider audience.
Google also stated that users would soon see AI-powered features in its search engine, which is crucial for its looming battle with Microsoft.
The new responses would “distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats,” according to Pichai.
