Google I/O 2023: Search King Adds AI To Respond To Microsoft Challenge

Google is integrating generative AI into search as well as products: Sundar Pichai

Image Courtesy: Reuters

New Delhi: Alphabet Inc's Google is rolling out more artificial intelligence for its core search product, hoping to create some of the same consumer excitement generated by Microsoft Corp's update to rival search engine Bing in recent months. At its annual I/O conference in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday, Google offered a new version of its namesake engine.

Called the Search Generative Experience, the revamped Google can craft responses to open-ended queries while retaining its recognizable list of links to the Web. "We are reimagining all of our core products, including search," Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, said after he took the stage at the event. ()

He said Google is integrating generative AI into search as well as products such as Gmail, which can create draft messages, and Google Photos, which can make changes to images like centering figures and coloring in empty space. ()

U.S. consumers will gain access to the Search Generative Experience in the coming weeks via a wait list, a trial phase during which Google will monitor the quality, speed and cost of search results, Vice President Cathy Edwards said in an interview.

Google’s foray into what is known as generative AI comes after the startup OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, the darling chatbot of Silicon Valley that launched a furious funding race among would-be competitors. Generative AI can, using past data, create brand new content like fully formed text, images and software code.

"AI can provide insight," Edwards said. "But what fundamentally people want at the end of the day is to be connected to information from real people and organizations, knowing, for example, that this health information comes from the WHO," or the World Health Organization.

Addressing how AI can spout incorrect information, Edwards said the company prioritized accuracy and citing trusted sources. Google will also mark up images it generates with AI and make it easier for people to vet a picture's authenticity.

"Google's vision makes a strong case that search is evolving, not dissolving, and that Google is here to stay," said Canaccord Genuity analyst Kingsley Crane.

What Outfit To Wear?

With the embedded AI, Google still looks and acts like its familiar empty search bar.

But while a search for "weather San Francisco" will as usual point a user to an eight-day forecast, a query asking what outfit to wear in the California city prompts a lengthy response generated by AI, according to a demonstration for Reuters earlier this week.

A challenge of drawing on such AI, known as large language models, is the high expense. Edwards said, "We and others are working on a variety of different ways to bring down the cost over time."

Ads will remain key, Edwards said. "We only get paid when there's a click."

Bard For 180 Countries

Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors, said, "The company is showing a willingness and ability to reinvent and disrupt itself, which I feel will be favorably received by investors."

In February Google announced its competing chatbot called Bard. Now, Bard will be multimodal like OpenAI's GPT-4, the company said on Wednesday, and it will make the chatbot accessible to people in more than 180 countries and territories.

That means customers will be able to prompt Bard with images, not just text - for instance asking the chatbot to write a caption to a picture they hand it, it said.

Behind Bard also is a more powerful AI model Google announced called PaLM 2, which it said could solve tougher problems. One of its PaLM 2 models is lightweight enough to work on smartphones, Pichai also said.