Google unveiled conversational features for its search engine and made its chatbot Bard widely available for English speakers, a development that is a major statement as it races Microsoft and a growing number of tech companies in the artificial-intelligence space.
Calling the moment a new era in search, Google introduced a set of features — called Search Generative Experience — that use AI programs to provide lengthier summaries in response to a range of queries. The features invite follow-up questions, opening a new interface allowing users to hold conversations with the search engine.
Google stopped short of rolling out the product immediately, instead opening a wait list under a new experimental program called Search Labs.
The unveiling was part of a series of AI-focused announcements at Google’s I/O developer conference, the company’s biggest annual showcase for new products, as it battles concerns that services such as the ChatGPT bot developed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI could chip into its dominance in search and online advertising.
Google said Bard, its answer to ChatGPT, is now freely available in English in more than 180 countries and territories, and would soon support 40 languages, including Japanese and Korean. The chatbot previously could only be accessed from a waiting list.
A new version of Google’s flagship AI program, PaLM 2, short for Pathways Language Model, will be used in 25 products across the company, including Bard and the search features.
Today’s trading session saw $GOOG rise by as much as 4.1% on the day to trade at $112/share, with two hours left in the session.
