Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, has announced that it will launch a chatbot service and integrate more artificial intelligence (AI) into its search engine and for developers, in response to Microsoft’s recent chatbot advancements.
This comes as the public has rapidly embraced Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a competing chatbot that generates human-like prose and is predicted to change how consumers search for information online, a key aspect of Google’s business.
Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, stated in a blog post that the company is launching a conversational AI service named Bard for user testing and feedback, before a public release in the coming weeks. He also stated that Google plans to incorporate AI features into its search engine to synthesize information for complex queries.
Pichai said that Bard seeks to merge the vast knowledge of the world with the power and intelligence of AI.
Microsoft is also briefing news media outlets on its own project developments, with CEO Satya Nadella, according to a Reuters invitation.
The technology behind Google’s Bard is LaMDA, an AI system that generated text so well that a company engineer called it sentient, although this claim has been widely dismissed by the technology giant and scientists.
It remains unclear how Google plans to differentiate Bard from ChatGPT. Pichai stated that the new service uses information from the internet, while ChatGPT’s knowledge is current as of 2021.
In a demonstration of the service, Bard invites users to prompt it, but warns that its response may be inappropriate or inaccurate. The demo showed that it provided three answers to a query about a space telescope’s discoveries.
Google is relying on a version of LaMDA that requires less computing power, allowing it to serve more users and improve based on feedback. On the other hand, ChatGPT has sometimes had to turn away users due to its explosive growth, with UBS analysts reporting that it had 57 million unique visitors in December, outpacing TikTok in adoption.
Google plans to give technology tools powered by LaMDA and later by other AI to creators and enterprises starting next month, according to Pichai.
This update for Google search reflects the company’s efforts to enhance its service, while Microsoft is doing the same for Bing by integrating OpenAI’s capabilities into it.
