The excitement surrounding consumer generative AI may have waned since its peak in early 2023, but Google and Microsoft appear to be reigniting the battle for AI supremacy.
Both tech giants are unveiling updates to their AI products this week. Google has already launched enhancements to Bard, its generative AI tool, albeit exclusively for English speakers initially. These updates introduce the ability to seamlessly integrate Bard into various Google apps and utilize it across multiple platforms. Meanwhile, Microsoft is preparing to announce its own AI innovations, although specifics remain under wraps for now.
These updates offer valuable insights into how generative AI is likely to become an integral part of our daily lives. Rather than merely assisting with internet searches and generating text blocks based on results, these AI technologies are being embedded into the apps we frequently use. They will sift through our daily activities, serving as helpful task assistants, transforming them from novelty features into essential aids.
Jack Krawczyk, the product lead for Bard, emphasized, “What we’ve learned over the first six months led us to this moment, a pretty profound and pivotal moment in the very, very short history of consumer language models.”
One of Bard’s standout features is Bard Extensions, enabling users to incorporate Bard into a range of Google tools and apps, including Gmail, Drive, YouTube, Maps, Flights, and Hotels.
Krawczyk elaborated on how this integration might function, citing examples like trip planning across Gmail, Flights, Hotel, and YouTube. Additionally, it can extract information from a user’s resume stored on Google Drive, summarizing it to assist in drafting a cover letter in Docs or Gmail. While Google’s enterprise product, Workspace, had previously offered generative AI integrations with Duet AI, these features were not accessible to the general public, unlike Bard’s latest offerings.
On the Microsoft front, details about their upcoming AI innovations remain somewhat mysterious. Microsoft has already integrated generative AI into various products, primarily catering to enterprise customers. These tools often come with associated costs, such as premium subscriptions for Generative AI-enhanced LinkedIn and paid services for Copilot in Microsoft 365. The extent to which Microsoft targets general consumers beyond its Bing ambitions remains to be seen.
When viewed together and with the anticipation of Microsoft’s announcement, these developments mark the second wave of significant AI revelations from these tech giants. The initial fervor around internet search integration earlier this year ignited the AI Search Race. However, this vision of AI search hasn’t caused the expected upheaval. Google’s Bard remains somewhat experimental and less integrated into Google search than Bing’s chatbot within Bing. Google seems to be cautiously offering Bard to those already aware of its existence, while Bing actively promotes Bing Chat as a search feature to a wider audience.
Microsoft’s push for the new Bing was understandable, as it had partnered with OpenAI, a prominent company in the field. With Google dominating the search market, Microsoft had little to lose if Bing Chat didn’t catch on, and much to gain if it did. On the other hand, Google’s more restrained approach might prove to be the winning strategy in the long run. Generative AI still grapples with issues like hallucinations, making it an unreliable source of information. It’s unclear how many users truly desire internet search engines to provide text-based summaries rather than links to authoritative sources.
To address recent chatbot inaccuracies, Bard has introduced a “Google it” button under responses, allowing users to double-check its accuracy. Verified statements are highlighted in green, while differing links are marked in orange. This acknowledges the accuracy concerns that have hindered chatbot trustworthiness, particularly for internet searches. However, users might be more willing to embrace AI assistants into their daily tasks when the source data originates from their emails and documents.
Generative AI personal assistants have been attempted before, including by Google, with limited success. Whether generative AI assistants fulfill the promises of their predecessors or suffer a similar fate remains to be seen.
Jack Krawczyk concluded, “A language model is going to be able to integrate in with your personal life. We’re used to technology doing things for us… Bard is doing things with us.”
The question now is who will embrace this integration and how they will utilize it in their lives.