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When San Francisco startup OpenAI released ChatGPT late last year, AI chatbots looked like the first serious threat to Google in decades. A techie thought that one day Google’s Internet search engine might look old and corny.
Google executives have promised swift action to protect the company’s $162 billion franchise, saying it will weave artificial intelligence across Google’s products, from search engines to email.
At its annual conference in Mountain View, Calif., on Wednesday, the company demonstrated some of the things it’s been working on. Google says its search engine will incorporate AI-generated responses at the top of query results pages, allowing users to ask follow-up questions.
It was a remarkable step towards Google’s adoption of AI, which many experts believe has the potential to reshape the tech industry. Google was a pioneer in this technology, but was reluctant to do too much because of the risks associated with AI, such as spreading misinformation.
But Google, like the rest of Silicon Valley, was surprised by ChatGPT’s success. In December, Google declared a “code red” to find ways to incorporate the technology behind his ChatGPT, called Generative AI, into its own products.
Google announced at Wednesday’s conference that it is now incorporating its latest AI technology into 25 products. This includes search updates and the ability to help users compose emails in her Gmail.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said at the conference: “With generative AI, we are taking a bold and responsible approach to taking the next step and reimagining all our products.”
The company has also doubled down on its hardware ambitions, releasing two new smartphones and a tablet. At the high end was Google’s first foldable smartphone, the Pixel Fold. For the budget minded, it offered the Pixel 7A, a $500 phone. The company has made the Pixel tablet portable and dockable to speakers, so it works like a smart home he display.
Google has been competing with OpenAI and its partner Microsoft. In February, Microsoft showed that the latest version of Microsoft’s search engine Bing includes a chatbot that works with technology developed by OpenAI.
However, Google still takes a more cautious approach than its main competitors. The company did not include chatbots in its search engine, which tend to create false information. Instead, Google said it would continue to use AI to provide some answers, backed up by authoritative websites, and include ads in its answers.
Liz Reid, Google’s vice president of search, said in a pre-conference interview that users expect Google to have high-quality information, and Google doesn’t want to undermine that trust. Told.
“The technology is nascent,” Reid said. “It’s amazing in some ways, but it’s a lot of challenges in others.”
To use the latest search features, you’ll need to sign up for Search Labs, a new initiative that allows users and companies to test experimental features. The New York Times previously reported that Google will allow up to 30 million people in the US to use the update by the end of the year.
In March, Google released Bard, an experimental chatbot intended to compete with ChatGPT. Google expanded access to the tool on Wednesday, making it available in English in over 180 countries and territories, and also offering it in Japanese and Korean.
Pichai also explained the company’s efforts to build more powerful AI technology. He announced the latest version of its more powerful technology, Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM 2), and said work has begun on an even larger model, Gemini.
AI models are huge systems used to develop artificial intelligence, and so far only a handful of companies have the resources to develop them. Protecting the search business is vital to the company’s future, but Google is making billions of dollars by allowing other companies to use its cloud computing services to develop their own AI services. you can earn
Google said it made Bard, which can generate emails, shopping lists and poems, more intelligent and creative by running it on PaLM 2. The chatbot displays and interprets images and allows the user to export responses to her Gmail, Docs, and other applications. .
The company has begun integrating generative AI into workspace applications such as Gmail, Docs and Sheets. Users can create images for slide decks or draft documents with simple text descriptions. Optionally, you can change the writing style to be more professional or casual.
Since ChatGPT was introduced, Google has faced criticism from tech industry insiders for not moving fast enough to improve search. But Reid said the company’s large audience is “the loudest chorus to hear.”
“There is still a huge opportunity in the world to meet people’s information needs, and there are always a lot of people trying to solve it. I think that’s great,” she said. “It helps us, everyone, and helps us evolve.”
Investors are watching Google’s AI advances and worrying about competitive threats from OpenAI and Microsoft. Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney said in an interview that this year’s presentation “doesn’t end the concerns, but it addresses some of them.”
“They needed to remind people that they had made a lot of innovations in AI for a long time,” he said.
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