CEO Sundar Pichai confirms Google Search will get AI-powered chat capabilities. But there is still a lot to do.

This was confirmed by Google’s big boss in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Of course, that shouldn’t come as a surprise: it’s well known that the integration of GPT-4 into Bing is ringing alarm bells at Google. Pichai officially confirms the arrival of chat functionality in Google Search, but leaves open the question of when that would happen.

Google is currently mostly chasing in the AI ​​race. The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 got the tech giant going. After billions were pumped into OpenAI, the technology also ended up in the hands of Microsoft, which eagerly used it to integrate AI chat capabilities into Bing to challenge Google’s search dominance.

catch-up

We are not that far yet. Figures from SimilarWeb (via The Wall Street Journal) show that Google search had more than 75 billion unique visitors in March. ChatGPT and Bing are in the billions, followed by DuckDuckGo, which recently added AI-generated search results. But everyone at the company knew that Google had to act.

At the beginning of February, Google launched the alternative to ChatGPT with Bard. After a messy start, the tool is now available to a select audience. Google now wants to switch Bard from the LaMDA model to the more powerful PaLM. Bard needs to prepare this step so that it can be integrated with Google Search.

Ironically, Google itself declared in early March that Bard was not intended for search functions. We had to see Bard as “a creative companion,” said engineer Jack Krawczyck. Nevertheless, Google recognizes that the greatest potential lies with the search engine, which is still the main source of income.

The tide is turning

When all this will happen is still unclear. As Google shifts up a gear, public opinion has taken a 180-degree turn. Scientists and politicians are now trying to stop the development of artificial intelligence. The tech companies don’t seem to care and just keep working with artificial intelligence.