During its quarterly earnings call on Thursday, Google made an effort to reassure investors and analysts that it is still a leader in creating AI. In light of the possible danger posed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Google’s core business, the tech sector and investors were eagerly awaiting the company’s Q4 2022 results.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on the call that the business would soon begin offering large language models (LLMs) powered by artificial intelligence, such as LaMDA. Pichai has announced that huge language models would soon be available to consumers as a search tool companion.
Using knowledge from massive volumes of text data, an LLM like ChatGPT can recognize, summarise, and produce text and other material. Pichai has indicated that the upcoming models are great for composing, building, and summarising, all of which users will be able to make use of.
“Now that we can integrate more direct LLM-type experiences in Search, I think it will help us expand and serve new types of use cases, generative use cases,” Pichai said. “And so, I think I see this as a chance to rethink and reimagine and drive Search to solve more use cases for our users as well. It’s early days, but you will see us be bold, put things out, get feedback and iterate and make things better.”
Pichai’s comments about a potential competitor to ChatGPT come as a report this week revealed that Microsoft is working to incorporate a faster version of ChatGPT, known as GPT-4, into Bing. If successful, this would make Microsoft’s search engine, which currently has only a sliver of search market share, more competitive with Google.
As a result of ChatGPT’s success, Google has reportedly asked its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to assist in counteracting the app’s risks. According to a recent article in The New York Times, Page and Brin have held multiple meetings with corporate leaders to discuss their AI strategy.
Pichai cautioned investors and analysts during the call that the technology will need to scale cautiously since he considers widespread language use to be in its early days. In addition, he assured investors that the company is developing AI with a strong sense of responsibility and that it will be cautious when releasing AI-based products, starting with beta features and gradually increasing the pace of its rollout.
He continued by saying that Google would be releasing new APIs and developer tools to help programmers, content creators, and business partners create and explore AI-powered apps.
Recently, we covered some Google-related articles; if you want to learn more about it, see the links below.
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Google also said that beginning in the first quarter of 2023, the firm would alter the way its DeepMind AI division is reported on. The business unit will no longer be included in the Other Bets umbrella, where long-payoff projects are reported, but rather as part of Alphabet’s corporate costs. CFO of Alphabet Ruth Porat said the shift in reporting “reflects the strategic focus in DeepMind to support each one of our segments.”
This action will show the market that the company is committed to AI and will help propel the field forward. A Search and AI event is being held on February 8 by the tech giant, it was announced shortly after the call.
The event is meant to demonstrate how Google is “using the power of AI to reimagine how people search for, explore and interact with information, making it more natural and intuitive than ever before to find what you need,” as stated in the invitation extended to the press. There are clues for Google Maps, Lens, Shopping, and Translate in the invitation as well.
This unexpected happening is intriguing because Google usually announces new features for Maps, Lens, and other related products at its annual I/O conference in May. Due to the imminent nature of this event, Google looks to be concentrating on ensuring investors that despite recent setbacks, it remains an “AI-first” corporation.
“AI is the most profound technology we are working on today,” Pichai said during the call. “Our talented researchers, infrastructure and technology make us extremely well-positioned as AI reaches an inflection point. More than six years ago, I first spoke about Google being an AI-first company. Since then, we have been a leader in developing AI. We are just at the beginning of our AI journey and the best is yet to come,” he said.
The recent announcement that Google is investing $300 million in AI firm Anthropic is another evidence of the company’s commitment to the field. The Financial Times was the first to break the story, and on Friday, Google confirmed the investment to TechCrunch.
Claude, Anthropic’s newly released AI model, is often compared favorably to ChatGPT. San Francisco’s startup will be valued at about $5 billion after the new financing is brought in. This comes after Microsoft declared plans to invest billions in OpenAI.
Pichai stressed throughout the call that Google has been investing in AI for a long time. It’s true, but the corporation hasn’t exactly made much headline-grabbing progress in the area. The AI Playground app, for instance, could have been similar to ChatGPT if not for the company’s decision to artificially restrict its features.
During last year’s I/O, the business also introduced a Pathways Language Model (PALM) for artificial intelligence. Though it’s Google’s biggest model yet, the corporation has been mum on how it will be used.
As a result, investors are keeping a tight eye on Google to see how it deals with the ChatGPT danger, despite the company’s previous assurances. Although Alphabet stock opened lower today following the release of the company’s poor earnings report for the fourth quarter, the stock had recovered all of its losses by midday.
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