Google is moving forward with its plans to bring artificial intelligence (AI) chat features to its main search engine, while working to keep pace with a wave of new AI tools, which could threaten the company’s dominance for the first time in decades.
The company said Wednesday that the next step in the evolution of Google Search (Google Search, in Spanish), is to use an AI-powered chatbot to answer questions you “never thought Search could answer”, and to help users get the information they want faster than ever.
results will be different
With the update, the appearance of Google Search results will be noticeably different. When users type a question into the main search bar, they will automatically see a pop-up window with an AI-generated answer in addition to displaying the traditional results.
Users can now sign up for the new version of Google Search, which will launch for the first time in the United States, through the Google app or the Chrome desktop browser. A limited number of users will have access in the coming weeks, according to the company.
The updates were unveiled at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer event, which focused on a mix of AI and hardware products.
At the event, Google also announced PaLM 2, its latest AI language model to compete with GPT-4 from ChatGPT creator OpenAI. This move marks a big step for the technology that powers the company’s AI products, promising to be better at logic, common-sense reasoning and math. You can also generate specialized code in different programming languages.
movements
The moves come as Google’s rivals, including Microsoft, are racing to develop and deploy AI features in search engines and productivity tools in the wake of ChatGPT’s viral success. According to reports, the immense attention on ChatGPT led Google’s management to declare a “code red” situation for its search business.
In addition to the changes to Search, Google is expanding access to its existing Bard chatbot, which works outside of the search engine and can help users complete tasks like outlining and writing draft essays, planning a friend’s baby shower, and Get lunch ideas based on what’s in the fridge. Previously available to some users via a waitlist only in the US, the tool will soon be available to all users in 120 countries and 40 languages.
extensions
Google is also releasing extensions for Bard from within its own services, such as Gmail, Sheets, and Docs, allowing users to ask questions and collaborate with the chatbot within the apps they are using.
But incorporating AI chatbots comes with some risks. These tools have raised concerns about pitch and accuracy, the latter of which is of particular importance to the online search engine that has long been the cornerstone of Google’s business.