By Samantha Murphy Kelly | CNN Business
Google is moving forward with plans to bring AI chat features to its core search engine as it works to keep pace with a wave of new artificial intelligence tools that could threaten the company’s dominance online for the first time in decades.
The company on Wednesday said it is introducing the next evolution of Google Search, which will use an AI-powered chatbot to answer questions “you never thought Search could answer” and to help get users the information they want quicker than ever.
With the update, the look and feel of Google Search results will be noticeably different. When users type a query into the main search bar, they will automatically see a pop-up with an AI-generated response in addition to displaying traditional results.
Users can now sign up for the new Google Search, which will first launch in the United States, via the Google app or Chrome’s desktop browser. A limited amount of users will have access to it in the coming weeks, according to the company.
The updates were unveiled at I/O, the company’s annual developer event, which focused on a mix of AI and hardware products. At the event, Google also announced PaLM 2, its latest AI language model to rival ChatGPT-creator OpenAI’s GPT-4. The move marks a big step forward for the technology that powers the company’s AI products and promises to be better at logic, common sense reasoning and mathematics. It can also generate specialized code in different programming languages.
The moves come as Google’s rivals, including Microsoft, are racing to develop and deploy AI features in search engines and productivity tools in the wake of the viral success of ChatGPT. The immense attention on ChatGPT reportedly prompted Google’s management to declare a “code red” situation for its search business.
In addition to the changes to search, Google is expanding access to its existing chatbot Bard, which operates outside the search engine and can…
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