Google Introduces Bard, an AI Chat Tool to Compete with Microsoft ChatGPT

Google has announced Bard, an experimental conversation AI service, in an effort to catch up to the hugely successful chatbot ChatGPT from the Microsoft-backed company OpenAI.

According to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai's blog post, the service would initially be made available to "trusted testers" before being more readily accessible to the general public in the upcoming weeks.

This statement comes as Microsoft, another major player in the technology sector, is reportedly investing $10 billion in the startup artificial intelligence (AI) research lab OpenAI and wants to integrate AI capabilities across a variety of its software products, including Google rival Bing.

During the company's earnings conference call last week, Sundar Pichai had previously hinted at the service's launch, stating that customers will be able to use the company's language models "as a companion to search."

Bard: What is it and how does it work?

Bard will respond in detail to user questions like "plan a wife's birthday party," "compare two action category movies," and "get dining ideas based on what's in your fridge," just like ChatGPT does.

On the other hand, Pichai stated that "Bard draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses," despite the fact that ChatGPT's knowledge is currently limited to internet data until 2021.

He went on to say, "Bard can be an outlet for creativity and a launchpad for curiosity. It can help you 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."

LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a massive language model created by Google and made available in 2021, powers Bard. Pichai stated that they will initially release Bard on a "lightweight" LaMDA version that will require significantly less computing power, allowing them to scale to more users and solicit additional feedback.

Google will allow developers to build on top of their existing AI models in addition to releasing Bard. Individual developers, creators, and businesses will be able to test their Generative Language API beginning next month. The API will initially be powered by LaMDA, with additional language models to follow.

Pichai stated that they intend to develop a set of tools and APIs over time that will make it simple for others to develop AI-based applications that are more "innovative."

Google Search's new AI features will break down complicated information and multiple points of view into formats that are simple for users to understand. He also said that Google Search will soon have AI-powered features that break down complicated information and multiple points of view into easy-to-understand formats so that people can quickly see the big picture and learn more from the internet.