When San Francisco startup OpenAI released ChatGPT late last year, AI chatbots looked like the first serious threat to Google in decades. One day, some techies wondered if this would make Google’s Internet search engine look old and outdated.
Google executives have vowed to act quickly to protect the company’s $162 billion franchise, saying artificial intelligence will be embedded throughout the company’s products, from search engines to email.
At its annual conference in Mountain View, Calif., on Wednesday, the company demonstrated some of what it’s been working on. Google announced that its search engine will begin embedding AI-generated responses at the top of query results pages, allowing users to ask follow-up questions.
It’s a remarkable step toward Google’s adoption of AI, and many experts believe it could reshape the tech industry. Google was a pioneer in this technology, but was reluctant to actively use AI because of the risks involved, such as spreading false information.
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 ChatGPT, called generative AI, into its own products.
Google announced at Wednesday’s conference that it has incorporated the latest AI technology into 25 products, including search updates and features that help users write emails in Gmail.
“After seven years on our journey as an AI-first company, we are at an exciting inflection point,” 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 phone, the Pixel Fold. For those on a budget, it offered a $500 phone, the Pixel 7A. The company’s Pixel Tablet is portable and can be docked to a speaker, so it works like a smart home his display.
Google has been competing with OpenAI and its partner Microsoft. In February, Microsoft demonstrated how the latest version of Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, includes a chatbot that works with technology developed by OpenAI.
But Google still takes a more cautious approach than its main competitors. The company didn’t incorporate chatbots into its search engine, which are prone to fabricating false information. Instead, Google said it would use AI to provide some answers, which would be backed up by authoritative websites, and that it would continue to include advertising in its answers.
Google search vice president Liz Reed said in an interview ahead of the conference that users expect the company to have high-quality information and don’t want to undermine that trust.
“The technology is nascent,” says Reid. “In some ways it’s amazing, but in others it’s a lot of challenges.”
To use the latest search features, you’ll need to sign up for Search Labs, a new initiative that allows users and businesses 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 to more than 180 countries and territories, as well as Japanese and Korean.
Pichai also spoke about the company’s efforts to build stronger AI technology. He announced the latest version of that more powerful technology, his Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM 2), and said that development of an even larger model called Gemini has begun.
AI models are the huge systems used to develop artificial intelligence, but so far only a handful of companies have the resources to develop them. Protecting its search business is vital to the company’s future, but Google could make billions by allowing other companies to use its cloud computing services to develop their own AI services. .
Google said it made Bard, which can generate emails, shopping lists and poems, run on PaLM 2 to make it more intelligent and creative. Chatbots will be able to view and interpret images, and users will be able to export responses to Gmail, Docs and other applications.
The company has begun integrating generative AI into Workspace applications such as Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. Users can use short text descriptions to create images for slide decks and document drafts. You can optionally change the writing style to be more professional or casual.
Since ChatGPT’s introduction, Google has faced criticism from tech insiders for not moving fast enough to improve search. But Reed said the company’s large number of users are “the loudest choir to hear.”
“There’s still a huge opportunity in the world to meet people’s information needs, and there’s always a lot of people trying to solve it, and I think that’s great,” she said. “It helps us evolve, and everyone.”
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 address the concerns, but it does partially address them.”
“They needed to remind people that they had made a lot of innovations in AI for a long time, and they got the point,” he said.
