Google unveils Bard, its own ChatGPT rival

Alphabet-owned Google formally announced its own rival to OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-powered text generating platform, ChatGPT. Officially called Bard, the tool is powered by the company’s previously existing Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) large language model, and is being opened for ‘trusted testers’ — starting today, February 7.

“Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses,” said Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google and Alphabet, in a blog post.

1/ In 2021, we shared next-gen language + conversation capabilities powered by our Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA). Coming soon: Bard, a new experimental conversational #GoogleAI service powered by LaMDA. https://t.co/cYo6iYdmQ1

— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) February 6, 2023

Pichai detailed that Bard will also be integrated into Google’s core product, Search. Explaining the rationale, the executive cited an example of how Search, in its present form, needs users to make multiple search queries broken down into simpler forms in order to find a response to more complicated questions. Simply put, Bard, like ChatGPT, will be able to process questions asked in natural language flow, and compose an answer by merging multiple standard search results together.

The initial version of Bard is based on a ‘lightweight’ version of LaMDA, Pichai said, explaining that doing so would “require significantly less computing power, enabling us to scale to more users, allowing for more feedback.”

Going forward, Pichai added that an application programming interface (API) for the service, called the Google Generative Language API, would be released for an initial bunch of developers, creators and businesses next month. Bard will also be opened for more users to test, and be available in a new format of Search, “soon”.

To be sure, this is not the first generative text-based chatbot to be based on LaMDA. Google’s DeepMind, a division focused on AI research, unveiled Sparrow in September last year. The tool was trained on human feedback, and is tipped to be opened to developer access, in beta, later this year.

Google’s announcement also comes as reports have surfaced on Microsoft rolling out a version of Bing, the latter’s search engine, powered by ChatGPT. A report by US publication The Verge said that the company has scheduled an event later today, where it is likely to showcase its first version of ChatGPT-powered Bing.

While Bing presently has a much smaller market share in the search engine space in comparison to Google Search, AI powered tools, as the popularity of ChatGPT has showcased (it became the fastest online platform to amass 100 million users), can potentially change the way users interact with platforms online.

To be sure, Google’s primary ad sales revenues are largely driven by its Search platform — any reduction in the latter’s market share could be a telling moment for Alphabet and its financials in the coming quarters.