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 staff realized that Samsung was weighing making Bing the default search engine on its gadgets as an alternative of Google’s search engine, prompting a “panic” inside the corporate, in line with a report from the New York Instances, citing inside messages and paperwork. (CNN has not reviewed the fabric.)
In an effort to handle the heightened competitors, Google is claimed to be growing a brand new AI-powered search engine known as Undertaking “Magi,” in line with the Instances. The corporate, which reportedly has about 160 folks engaged on the undertaking, goals to alter the way in which outcomes seem in Google Search and can embody an AI chat instrument accessible to reply questions. The undertaking is predicted to be unveiled to the general public subsequent month, in line with the report.
In a press release despatched to CNN, Google spokesperson Lara Levin mentioned the corporate has been utilizing AI for years to “enhance the standard of our outcomes” and “provide solely new methods to look,” together with with a function rolled out final yr that lets customers search by combining pictures and phrases.
“We’ve performed so in a accountable and useful manner that maintains the excessive bar we set for delivering high quality info,” Levin mentioned. “Not each brainstorm deck or product thought results in a launch, however as we’ve mentioned 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 20 years. However the viral success of ChatGPT, which may generate compelling written responses to person 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 instrument that instantly competes with ChatGPT and guarantees to assist customers define and write essay drafts, plan a buddy’s child bathe, and get lunch concepts based mostly on what’s within the fridge.
At an occasion in February, a Google government additionally mentioned the corporate will carry “the magic of generative AI” instantly into its core search product and use synthetic intelligence to pave the way in which 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 corporations, together with Meta, Baidu and IBM, in addition to a slew of startups, are racing to develop and deploy AI-powered instruments.
However tech corporations face dangers in embracing this know-how, which is understood to make errors and “hallucinate” responses. That’s significantly true in terms of search engines like google and yahoo, a product that many use to search out correct and dependable info.
Google was known as out after a demo of Bard supplied 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 known as out for a number of errors, together with an obvious failure to distinguish between the varieties 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 pressured the necessity for corporations to “be accountable in every step alongside the way in which” as they construct and launch AI instruments.
For Google, he mentioned, which means permitting time for “person suggestions” and ensuring the corporate “can develop extra sturdy security layers earlier than we construct, earlier than we deploy extra succesful fashions.”
He additionally expressed his perception that these AI instruments will finally 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 feel it’s a really, very profound know-how,” he mentioned. “And so, we’re simply in early days.”