Google answers ChatGPT challenge with Bard expansion

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California

Google has said it is opening Bard, a rival to Microsoft-backed ChatGPT, to 180 countries as it expands the use of artificial intelligence across its platform.

Executives at an annual Google developers conference in Silicon Valley said that generative AI will also be used to supercharge the tech giant’s leading search engine.

“We have been applying AI for a while, with generative AI we are taking the next step,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai told thousands of developers gathered for the event.

“We are reimagining all our core products, including search,” he said.

Google is racing to catch up with rival Microsoft, which has rushed to integrate ChatGPT-like powers in a wide array of its products, including the Bing search engine.

Microsoft’s dash into AI came despite fears about the technology’s potential threat to society, including its impact on the spread of disinformation and whether it could make whole categories of jobs obsolete.

Cathy Edwards of Google Search said the new experience would be akin to search that is “supercharged” by a conversational bot.

Other Google executives laid out how generative AI is being woven into Gmail, photo editing, online work tools and more.

The company’s AI efforts would be carried out in a “bold and responsible” way, senior product director Jack Krawczyk said.

Google’s expansion meant it removed a waitlist for Bard, letting users around the world engage with it in English after months of testing it out in the U.S. and Britain.

Bard technology will enable features such as filling in text to help draft emails and suggesting ideas for artwork by scrutinizing a picture of available supplies.

Google is also letting partners build such extensions, including one from Adobe that will let users generate images, Krawczyk said.

The tech titan also unveiled new Pixel devices including a $1,799 foldable smartphone with a bendable screen that is the size of a tablet computer when opened.

Google also added a new tablet and a lower-priced version of its flagship smartphone to the Pixel lineup.

Google’s announcements came a week after rival Microsoft expanded public access to its generative artificial intelligence programs, which are powered by models made by OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.