Google and Microsoft have publicly announced their plans to revolutionize the way people search for information on the internet with the integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) features. This means a better search experience with specific and complete answers.
Generative AI is the technology that draws on troves of information online to generate new data, such as images, sounds, or text, based on existing patterns or inputs.
Microsoft adds ChatGPT to Bing
Microsoft has unveiled a revamped version of its search engine Bing, fueled by an improved AI technology that drives the popular chatbot, ChatGPT.
The tech giant is launching the new product along with advanced AI features for its Edge browser, promising users a transformative experience for exploring the internet and discovering information.
“It’s a new day in search,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at an event arranged to announce the products. The CEO argued that the paradigm for web search didn’t shift in decades, but that AI can deliver information more fluidly and rapidly than conventional methods.
“The race starts today, and we’re going to move and move fast,” she said. “Most importantly, we want to have a lot of fun innovating again in search, because it’s high time.”
The first demo of Microsoft’s Bing with ChatGPT integrationpic.twitter.com/BIaTu5g0W8
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) February 7, 2023
Microsoft CEO said that the AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser will deliver better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience, and the ability to generate content.
What is ChatGPT?
In its own explanation, the popular artificial intelligence chatbot describes ChatGPT as “an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI, based on the GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer) language model. It uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to text inputs in a conversational manner.”
This AI chatbot was developed by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI which was co-founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and Sam Altman and is sponsored by well-known investors — most notably Microsoft.
ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users only two months into its launch, making it the fastest-growing application in history.
It is a manifestation of generative AI, which encompasses a range of tools that enable users to input written prompts and receive generated outputs such as human-like text, images, and videos, all produced by the AI.
Google unveils Bard
In a move to compete with Microsoft’s ChatGPT, Google has introduced a new AI-powered chatbot named Bard.
Bard will initially only be accessible to a select group of “trusted testers” before being made available to the general public later in the year, according to the company.
This chatbot is constructed using Google’s existing large language model, Lamda, with one engineer attesting to its human-like responses being so advanced that they suspected it to possess sentience.
Bard is an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA. Built using our large language models and drawing on information from the web, it’s a launchpad for curiosity and can help simplify complex topics → https://t.co/fSp531xKy3 pic.twitter.com/JecHXVmt8l
— Google (@Google) February 6, 2023
What can Bard do?
“Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models,” said a blog post from Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Google’s chatbot, Bard, is designed to simplify complex topics like outer space discoveries in a way that even children can grasp. The company asserts that the chatbot will also handle more mundane tasks, like offering suggestions for party planning and suggesting meal ideas based on the ingredients available in a refrigerator.
Search engine war: Microsoft vs Google
With two back-to-back launches, Google and Microsoft are now officially in the AI race.
At the launch of the AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser, Microsoft CEO said that “AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the largest category of all – search”. Bing allows users to chat with the search engine and receive AI-generated answers, and Edge includes an AI-powered sidebar.
The new offerings came just days after Google previewed its own AI-powered search engine, Bard. However, Microsoft’s presentation of its new offerings was more comprehensive, with the company inviting journalists to a live event to show off the AI-powered products.
In a setback to Google, its parent company, Alphabet, lost $100 billion in market value on February 8 after a factual error was reported in Bard demo. However, analysts believe that despite Alphabet’s early stumble in rolling out an AI product, it’s far too early in the race for generative AI. In comparison with ChatGPT’s has reached 100 million users as of February 9, Google has a way to scale with far less effort due to its 1 billion users.
ChatGPT reached 100M users in 2 months, and is expanding at an increasing speed.
— Jim Fan (@DrJimFan) February 7, 2023
Google Bard, if fully rolled out, will reach at least 1B users.
We are witnessing 2 largest deployments of big neural nets in history. A dance of giants. Unfolding in real time.
Drawn to scale 👇 pic.twitter.com/2wDrfLj8zL