CNN
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Shares of Google-parent Alphabet fell greater than 3% in early buying and selling Monday after a report sparked issues that its core search engine may lose market share to AI-powered rivals, together with Microsoft’s Bing.
Final month, Google workers realized that Samsung was weighing making Bing the default search engine on its units as a substitute of Google’s search engine, prompting a “panic” inside the corporate, in accordance with a report from the New York Occasions, citing inner messages and paperwork. (CNN has not reviewed the fabric.)
In an effort to handle the heightened competitors, Google is alleged to be creating a brand new AI-powered search engine referred to as Undertaking “Magi,” in accordance with the Occasions. The corporate, which reportedly has about 160 individuals engaged on the venture, goals to vary the best way outcomes seem in Google Search and can embody an AI chat device out there to reply questions. The venture is predicted to be unveiled to the general public subsequent month, in accordance with the report.
In a press release despatched to CNN, Google spokesperson Lara Levin stated the corporate has been utilizing AI for years to “enhance the standard of our outcomes” and “supply fully new methods to go looking,” together with with a characteristic rolled out final yr that lets customers search by combining photographs and phrases.
“We’ve achieved so in a accountable and useful means that maintains the excessive bar we set for delivering high quality info,” Levin stated. “Not each brainstorm deck or product thought results in a launch, however as we’ve stated earlier than, we’re enthusiastic about bringing new AI-powered options to Search, and can share extra particulars quickly.”
Samsung didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Google’s search engine has dominated the marketplace for twenty years. However the viral success of ChatGPT, which may generate compelling written responses to consumer prompts, appeared to place Google on protection for the primary time in years.
In March, Google started opening up entry to Bard, its new AI chatbot device that instantly competes with ChatGPT and guarantees to assist customers define and write essay drafts, plan a pal’s child bathe, and get lunch concepts based mostly on what’s within the fridge.
At an occasion in February, a Google government additionally stated the corporate will deliver “the magic of generative AI” instantly into its core search product and use synthetic intelligence to pave the best way for the “subsequent frontier of our info merchandise.”
Microsoft, in the meantime, has invested in and partnered with OpenAI, the corporate behind ChatGPT, to deploy comparable know-how in Bing and different productiveness instruments. Different tech firms, together with Meta, Baidu and IBM, in addition to a slew of startups, are racing to develop and deploy AI-powered instruments.
However tech firms face dangers in embracing this know-how, which is understood to make errors and “hallucinate” responses. That’s significantly true relating to serps, a product that many use to search out correct and dependable info.
Google was referred to as out after a demo of Bard offered an inaccurate response to a query a couple of telescope. Shares of Google’s mother or father firm Alphabet fell 7.7% that day, wiping $100 billion off its market worth.
Microsoft’s Bing AI demo was additionally referred to as out for a number of errors, together with an obvious failure to distinguish between the sorts of vacuums and even made up details about sure merchandise.
In an interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai careworn the necessity for firms to “be accountable in every step alongside the best way” as they construct and launch AI instruments.
For Google, he stated, which means permitting time for “consumer suggestions” and ensuring the corporate “can develop extra strong security layers earlier than we construct, earlier than we deploy extra succesful fashions.”
He additionally expressed his perception that these AI instruments will in the end have broad impacts on companies, professions and society.
“That is going to influence each product throughout each firm and in order that’s, that’s why I believe it’s a really, very profound know-how,” he stated. “And so, we’re simply in early days.”