Google’s ‘Bard’ shows off its chatbot

In more than three months, Alphabet Inc. fell by the most after a demonstration of its new artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, sparked concerns that the tech giant has lost ground in the race for the future of internet search.

Since OpenAI launched its wildly popular chatbot, ChatGPT, many in the tech industry say it is the next generation of search. Microsoft Corp., which is investing billions in OpenAI, unveiled a new version of its Bing search engine and Edge browser, incorporating technology from the AI startup. The demonstration was largely underwhelmed by investors. In one instance, Bard was asked about new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope. In one of its responses, Bard said the telescope was used to take the first pictures of a planet outside the solar system, but NASA says those were actually taken by a different telescope.

Bard is available only to a limited number of trusted testers, and OpenAI's ChatGPT has also been found to deliver inaccurate or outdated responses. Investers are attuned to any threat to Google's search business, which remains its lifeblood.

That is why you see such a reaction, because this is the money generator, the cash cow in Alphabet's portfolio, said Mandeep Singh, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

Google said in a statement that Bard's response highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process. The company said it would combine external feedback with internal testing to ensure Bard's responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information. It was 4% to $99.67 at 1: 09 p.m. New York time on Wednesday. The shares fell by 8.9% on the day, the biggest drop since Oct. 26.

Last year, Google declared a code red in response to ChatGPT's release - a move similar to pulling a fire alarm internally, which sent the company's AI engineers scrambling for a response. Singh said that the company may have felt pressure to show off the technology before it was ready due to Bard's imperfect performance on the public stage.

They did this in a hurry, Singh said. You don't expect it from a company that is so dominant, and really has been able to fend off any challenges as far as their core search business. Gene Munster, co-founder and managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said that while Microsoft won the narrative this week, Google will eventually pay off its longstanding investments in artificial intelligence.

The snapshot is Microsoft's advantage right now. We think the long-term advantage should go to Alphabet given the resources it has put into AI over the past six years. None of That Zoom Meeting Really Could Have Been a Simple Phone Call