Google makes a bold Bard move in Big Tech's AI 'Game of Thrones'

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai says the company is reimagining all core products, including search, and taking the next step with generative AI

By Web Desk and Agencies

Published: Thu 11 May 2023, 1:26 PM

Last updated: Thu 11 May 2023, 1:38 PM

Google said on Wednesday it will open Bard, a rival to Microsoft-backed ChatGPT, to 180 countries as it expands the use of artificial intelligence across its platform.

Google's expansion meant it removed a waitlist for Bard, letting users around the world engage with it in English after months of testing it out in the US and Britain.

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At its annual developers conference in Silicon Valley, Google also announced the launch of PaLM 2, its newest large language model (LLM), according to a Tech Crunch article.

"PaLM 2 will power Google’s updated Bard chat tool," it added. PaLM 2 now features improved support for writing and debugging code.

Today we’re removing the waitlist process and making Bard available in over 180 countries and territories, with more coming soon. 🎉#GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/m6HSzScs4P
— Google (@Google) May 10, 2023

Supercharged search

Google executives added that generative AI will also be used to supercharge the tech giant's leading search engine.

Cathy Edwards of Google Search said the new experience would be akin to a search that is "supercharged" by a conversational bot.

Google Search has two new features surrounding better understanding of content and the context of an image the user is viewing in the search results, Tech Crunch reported .

For there will be more information available with an "About this Image" feature and new markup in the file itself that will allow images to be labelled as "AI-generated", it added, and highlighted that both these are extensions of work already going on.

"We have been applying AI for a while, with generative AI we are taking the next step," Google chief executive Sundar Pichai told thousands of developers gathered for the event. "We are reimagining all our core products, including search," he said.

Google executives also laid out how generative AI is being woven into Gmail, photo editing, online work tools and more.

The company's AI efforts would be carried out in a "bold and responsible" way, senior product director Jack Krawczyk said during a briefing.

Bard will be modified to support 40 languages in coming months, according to Krawczyk. "We're excited to get Bard into more people's hands," Krawczyk said. "We're pretty fired up about where Bard is going."

Google also released MusicLM, a new experimental AI tool that can turn text descriptions into music, Tech Crunch reported. It said MusicLM would let users type in a prompt like “soulful jazz for a dinner party” or “create an industrial techno sound that is hypnotic” and have the tool create several versions of the song".

2️⃣ We’ll also make it easy for you to prompt Bard with images, giving you even more ways to explore and create. #GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/jWi9Ac68Mz
— Google (@Google) May 10, 2023

The big AI race

Google's announcements came a week after rival Microsoft expanded public access to its generative artificial intelligence programmes, which are powered by models made by OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

Google is racing to catch up with rival Microsoft, which has rushed to integrate ChatGPT-like powers in a wide array of its products, including the Bing search engine.

Microsoft's dash into AI came despite fears about the technology's potential threat to society, including its impact on the spread of disinformation and whether it could make whole categories of jobs obsolete.

"This could be a defining moment in the AI battle with Google and Microsoft going head-to-head for market share," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.

Microsoft's early investment in OpenAI gave it a head start "in this Game of Thrones battle for Big Tech with Google now playing major catchup mode", the analyst added.

AI-enhanced features of Microsoft's Bing search engine and Edge internet browser recently became open for anyone. The services have been enhanced with the ability to work with images as well as text, and Microsoft intends to add video to the mix.