Google announced a slew of AI-powered features on Wednesday, as it intensified its battle with Microsoft to maintain its dominance in the web search industry.
After the ChatGPT bot captured the imagination of web users all over the world with its ability to produce essays, speeches, and even exam papers in seconds, the two Silicon Valley titans are rushing into space.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a multibillion-dollar partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI and unveiled new products, while Google attempted to steal the march a day previously with the announcement of its “Bard” chatbot.
Google vice president Prabhakar Raghavan said at a Paris event that Bard was now being used by “trusted testers,” but he did not provide a timeline for an official disclosure, which is expected in the coming weeks.
Analysts speculated that Google rushed its official statement due to pressure from Microsoft, but Raghavan denied this.
“This has been a multiyear journey,” he said, adding that no single event had “dramatically changed the course” of Google’s plans.
Google executives declared several AI-driven product enhancements on Wednesday, including maps, translation, and its image recognition tool Lens.
Microsoft has also stated that AI will be integrated into its Office suite and Teams messaging app.
However, its promise to improve its much-maligned Bing search engine put it at odds with Google, which has dominated the field for two decades.
AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, promise to provide users with ready-made answers from multiple sources, replacing the familiar list of links and ads that have been Google’s bread and butter for the past two decades.
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 — brought back to brainstorm ideas and expedite a response.
The urgency to act was heightened last week when Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced disappointing earnings and the layoff of 12,000 employees.
