Google has introduced Bard, its new artificial intelligence chatbot intended to compete with companies such as OpenAI and Microsoft in the increasingly saturated chatbot market, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Initially, Bard will be available to a select group of users in the U.S. and Britain and will progressively expand access to more users, nations and dialects, according to Google executives.
The release of the chatbot is a step in Google’s efforts to embrace this technology, which may pose a challenge to the continued dominance of its search engine.
OpenAI released ChatGPT in November of last year, and shortly after, Microsoft implemented a chatbot into its Bing search engine. According to the New York Times, the release of ChatGPT prompted Google’s management team to declare a “code red” and push AI to the top of its priority list.
Gartner analyst Chirag Dekate stressed that technology is “at a singular moment.” The release of ChatGPT, he said, generated new startups, intrigued the public and rejuvenated the competition between Google and Microsoft.
“Now that market demand has shifted, Google’s approach has, too,” he said.
Adrian Aoun, who previously served as a director of special projects at Google, said that it is necessary for the company to enter the chatbot realm to go “where the world is headed.” He also noted that shifting to chatbots could damage advertising-based business models.
Bard’s deployment has been a slow process. Despite testing efforts beginning in 2015, Google has been hesitant to fully release the chatbot due to the potential for inaccuracies and bias Bard and other chatbots have demonstrated.
“We are well aware of the issues; we need to bring this to market responsibly. At the same time, we see all the excitement in the industry and the excitement of all the people using generative AI,” Eli Collins, vice president of research at Google, commented.
The enterprise has not identified a way to profit from Bard, said Collins and Sissie Hsiao, a vice president for product at Google.
Currently, Bard is a separate webpage rather than a feature of Google’s search engine. The page includes a “Google it” button following each answer, which directs users to the typical search results page.
“We think of Bard as complementary to Google Search. We want to be bold in how we innovate with this technology as well as be responsible,” said Hsiao.