First, Google’s response to ChatGPT — Bard
We’ve been working on an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA, that we’re calling Bard. And today, we’re taking another step forward by opening it up to trusted testers ahead of making it more widely available to the public in the coming weeks.
Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses.
The fact that Bard will include information from the web might make this a really big deal. Now we will just have to wait and see what kind of guardrails Google puts on this: if Bard is more restrictive than ChatGPT then it is quite possible none of these other improvements will matter. Regardless, we are in for some fascinating competition.
Now, here’s the big one: search
Increasingly, people are turning to Google for deeper insights and understanding — like, “is the piano or guitar easier to learn, and how much practice does each need?” Learning about a topic like this can take a lot of effort to figure out what you really need to know, and people often want to explore a diverse range of opinions or perspectives.
AI can be helpful in these moments, synthesizing insights for questions where there’s no one right answer. Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web.
I can’t wait to try this myself. It does, however, look like they are still taking a slow, cautious approach to rolling out generative AI features into Search. Notice how, in the quote above, they mention integrating AI insights into “questions where there’s no one right answer.”