Google’s ChatGPT rival is coming soon: Sundar Pichai

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that Google plans to release big language models powered by AI, such as LaMDA, in the coming weeks and months. 

Pichai announced this on a conference call following the internet search giant's quarterly results report on Thursday, saying that users would soon be able to use language models "as a companion to search."

LaMDA, Google’s conversational AI model, will reportedly be the first model users can interact with directly, but how this will work exactly is unclear. 

It would be a bold step for the company, as systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E have recently gone viral, and Google, which has been working in AI space for years by producing tons of research in the area, has not yet had a public response to tools like these, some of which could threaten its core businesses. 

Pichai later stated that Google will be cautious, deploying AI features from the laboratories in certain situations, beta features in others, and gradually increasing the rollout from there.

He said that the time is right for these products to hit store shelves. No one knows for sure if society is ready for artificial intelligence, but it's obvious that individuals are interested in experimenting with the technology, and it appears that Google is prepared to do so. 

Microsoft, a competitor of Google, recently made headlines by announcing that it intends to integrate artificial intelligence features developed by startup OpenAI into its own products, such as the Bing search engine. The Information reported on January 3 that Microsoft's efforts to include artificial intelligence have sparked concern that it might provide a serious challenge to Google's supremacy in search.

The search giant is reportedly developing 20 AI technologies that will be unveiled in May during Google's I/O 2023 conference, as reported by the New York Times on January 20. Pichai has also invited Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, to discuss the company's AI strategy and seek their input.