Following Microsoft’s partnership extension with OpenAI, Google appears to break out in cold sweat. And with good reason! Microsoft has great ambitions in developing its AI-powered products and services, notably with ChatGPT. An announcement which Google reacted to without delay with the disclosure of its conversational AI service, Bard. As Google & Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai explained, the AI-bot is available for “trusted testers ahead of making it more widely available to the public in the coming weeks”.
From what was disclosed so far, Bard strongly resembles ChatGPT in the sense that it “draws information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality response”. With one exception though. Pichai specified that Bard can help “explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now”. Right now is the key word, and this is what ChatGPT cannot do as of yet – as its knowledge database does not go beyond 2021.
This would hence enable Google to offer its users the possibility to ask any questions on any topics, whether it is linked to a general subject or latest news.
“It’s a really exciting time to be working on these technologies as we translate deep research and breakthroughs into products that truly help people.” – Sundar Pichai
Google organized today (Feb. 8) a livestream on YouTube so as to present the newest and upcoming features on its products, thanks to artificial intelligence – so as to boost and optimize Search, Maps, and Translate services in particular. Mountain View company is clearly willing to secure its position as a leader, and still fulfill its ambition to “improve billions of lives” through its quest to meet people’s changing expectations and keep up with technological advances.
But will Bard be enough to maintain Google’s leading position?
This is not so sure as, on its side, Microsoft already announced yesterday that both Bing search engine and Edge browser are to “deliver better search” thanks to artificial intelligence – understand ChatGPT and ChatGPT-3.5. Although Bard is not yet launched, this hot news coming from both main tech competitors do imply the beginning of a real strained power struggle in this technological and innovation race.
All we can expect now is the announcement of new AI-powered features over the upcoming months, which is to feed this competition race.
