Bing’s chatbot is getting some company.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai tells the Wall Street Journal the company plans to incorporate its Bard AI into its search technology, though he declined to say when that might happen.
“Will people be able to ask questions to Google and engage with LLMs [large language models] in the context of search? Absolutely,” Pichai said.
Google has been slower to champion AI in its products than Microsoft, which first incorporated ChatGPT into search engine Bing in early February. Google only recently opened public access to Bard after the AI made factual errors in its first public demo, causing the company’s stock to plunge by $100 billion.
While it might be moving more slowly publicly, Google has been a champion of AI for years, using it to understand complex queries. Generative AI, where the technology carries on a conversation with users, has been slower to emerge, however, which created an opening for OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT.
There’s reason to move slowly in shaking up its search engine. Google search was responsible for $162 billion in earnings last year, far more than other divisions at Alphabet.
Bard is still in the very early stages at Google. Users who wish to interact with it must join a wait list, which can mean a weeks-long delay. Pichai declined to give details to the Journal about when the company plans to remove that barrier.
Part of the hesitation seems to be the cost. The computing power required to duplicate human conversation is considerable. And given cost-cutting earlier this year, which saw 10,000 Alphabet employees lose their jobs, the company is taking measured steps with expansion.
Google still publicly describes Bard as “an experiment,” but Pichai signaled the company has big plans for the technology, saying that ultimately, it “will be more accessible than people expect.”
