Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL; DR
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai has confirmed that the Google Search AI chatbot is up and running.
- Pichai did not indicate when she would arrive or whether she would rely on Bard.
- Bing already has an AI chatbot, so Google has to do some catching up.
For the first time since it emerged decades ago, Google Search is facing a major threat: ChatGPT. After all, why go searching to find what you need when you can have a conversation with a bot that can not only help you find a link, but give you context for that link and help you with the next steps. Oh yeah, and no ads.
With Google Bard introduced in March, it was only a matter of time before the company announced that a Google Search AI chatbot was in the works. Today, in an interview with The Wall Street JournalThis was confirmed by Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.
Unfortunately, that’s all Pichai confirmed. He declined to give a timeline for rolling out the feature. It also didn’t say if this Google Search AI chatbot would be Bard, based on Bard, or something else.
“Will people be able to ask questions on Google and interact with LLMs (Language Learning Models) in the context of a search? Mr. Pichai said.
Google is already behind the times when it comes to AI chatbots. Bard is not yet fully accessible to the public, which puts it behind ChatGPT. Microsoft has already integrated AI chat into its search engine, Bing. In other words, Google needs to move quickly to keep up.
Google Search continues to be the company’s cash cow, bringing in $162 billion last year alone. If it starts losing market share to other AI-powered chatbots — or even Bing, which has been the butt of jokes for over a decade now — it could be in serious trouble. Without a doubt, this is the biggest threat that Google has faced since its inception.
We’ll just have to wait and see how fast Google can move now.