Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently announced the company’s plans to integrate conversational AI into its search engine amid competition from chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing.
The Wall Street Journal reports that according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, conversational AI features will revolutionize the company’s dominant search engine. This action is being taken as the tech giant deals with increased pressure on the commercial front and competition from AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Microsoft’s recent Bing AI integration, despite the many problems Microsoft has run into.
OpenAI logo seen on screen with ChatGPT website displayed on mobile seen in this illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on December 12, 2022. (Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shows his fist ( Stephen Brashear /Getty)
Pichai stated that improvements in AI would significantly improve Google’s capacity to respond to a variety of search queries in an interview with Journal. Dismissing the notion that chatbots posed a threat to Google’s search business, which accounts for over half of the internet giant’s revenue, Pichai stated, “The opportunity space, if anything, is bigger than before.”
Google has long been a pioneer in large language models (LLMs), which can process and respond to queries in natural language with prose that sounds human. Despite this, Google hasn’t yet integrated this technology into the way that people conduct searches. Pichai announced that this would change, saying, “Will people be able to ask questions to Google and engage with LLMs in the context of search? Absolutely.”
OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology has already been integrated into Microsoft’s Bing search engine, posing a threat to Google’s core operations. Despite facing investor pressure to cut costs, Google continues to prioritize AI advancements and is testing new search products, such as versions allowing users to ask follow-up questions to their original queries.
Google’s work on AI has led to a series of high profile blunders. Most recently, a test showed the company’s Bard AI chatbot couldn’t answer standard SAT questions.
In February, the company’s disastrous launch of Bard caused a massive drop in its stock price. As Breitbart News reported:
Reuters reports that this week, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw a $100 billion decline in market value as a result of Bard, the company’s new chatbot, providing inaccurate information in a promotional video. Because of this failure and the lack of information regarding Bard’s integration into Google’s primary search function, there are worries that Google is falling behind its competitor Microsoft. The stock fell as much as 9 percent during Wednesday trading.
The launch of Google’s new chatbot on Monday was anticipated to simplify complex subjects. But just before its livestreamed presentation on Wednesday, Reuters called attention to a mistake in the company’s promotional video — the supposedly all-knowing AI made a basic mistake about space exploration.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan