Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, announced on Monday that it will introduce a chatbot service and advanced artificial intelligence for its search engine and developers. This move is a response to Microsoft Corp in the competition to become a leader in the new era of technology.
This announcement comes as the public has rapidly adopted ChatGPT, a chatbot from OpenAI backed by Microsoft, which generates human-like text on demand and is expected to revolutionize the way consumers search for information online, a crucial aspect of Google’s business.
Alphabet’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, announced in a blog post that the company is launching a new conversational AI service called Bard. The service will be tested by users for feedback prior to its public release in the upcoming weeks. Pichai stated that the purpose of Bard is to integrate the vast knowledge of the world with the advanced capabilities of Google’s AI. Additionally, Pichai mentioned that Google is planning to enhance its search engine with AI features that can synthesize information for complex queries.
In contrast, Microsoft is set to reveal its own project developments during a briefing for news media outlets, led by CEO Satya Nadella. Behind the creation of Bard lies LaMDA, Google’s AI that has demonstrated such impressive text generation abilities that a company engineer referred to it as sentient, which was widely discredited by both the tech giant and the scientific community.
It is uncertain how Google intends to distinguish Bard from ChatGPT. Pichai mentioned that Bard leverages information from the internet, while ChatGPT’s knowledge is up-to-date as of 2021.
In a demonstration of the service, Bard, like its competitor chatbot, asks users to input a prompt while warning that the response may be inappropriate or incorrect. The demo displayed three answers to a query about the discoveries made by a space telescope.
Google aims to use a version of LaMDA that requires less computing power, enabling it to serve more users and improve through their feedback, according to Pichai.
ChatGPT has had to turn away some users due to rapid growth, with UBS analysts reporting that it had 57 million unique visitors in December, potentially surpassing TikTok in terms of adoption.
Google intends to provide technology tools, initially powered by LaMDA and later by other AI, to content creators and businesses starting next month, as stated by Pichai.
Google’s enhancement to its search function, the timing of which has not been disclosed, demonstrates the company’s efforts to enhance its service, similar to Microsoft’s efforts with Bing by integrating OpenAI’s capabilities.