Google tunes in to AI chatbot Bard

While everyone anticipatedly waits for Microsoft’s announcement that viral AI sensation, ChatGPT, will be integrated into its search engine Bing, Google has taken to the mic to reveal its own AI service, Bard.

In a blog post this week, Google unveiled that it will be releasing its own experimental conversational AI service for testing in the coming weeks.

According to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google (and its parent company Alphabet), ‘Bard’ hopes to draw on information from the web to provide “fresh, high-quality responses,” to complex questions.

“Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats,” writes Pichai. So, rather than clicking through multiple sites to find a well-rounded answer to an objective question, such as “is the piano or the guitar easier to learn”, Bard will aim to deliver the answer for you.

“These new AI features will begin rolling out on Google Search soon,” says Pichai.

Pichai added that Google hopes to help developers build their own programs using its AI, and will be onboarding developers, creators, and enterprises to test out its Generative Language API in the future. “Having the necessary compute power to build reliable and trustworthy AI systems is also crucial to start-ups,” said Pichai.

Google has shown an increased interest in AI ever since ChatGPT was released by OpenAI last November.

According to the New York Times, Google internally announced a “Code Red” when ChatGPT’s popularity boomed for its ease of use in answering questions users would have otherwise searched Google for.

Plus, just last week, Google Cloud announced a partnership with AI start-up Anthropic, which the Financial Times reported included a $300m investment.