Google and Microsoft, the two tech giants dominate the artificial intelligence space, have been in an arms race since the start of the year to be a leader in generative AI, a term popularized by the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Yesterday (April 25), the two companies announced better-than-expected results for the first three months of 2023. In calls with analysts afterwards, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, provided much-anticipated updates on the status of their respective AI efforts. end of March and plans for the future.
Google is building chatbots smart enough to replace coders.
On the new bard: Google introduced the Bard chatbot, its answer to ChatGPT, in February and released an updated version earlier this month to include user-requested coding capabilities. The new Bard is powered by Google’s Pathways Language Model (PaLM), which is trained on a larger database than the previous language model, LaMDA.
“Bard can now help people with programming and software development tasks, including code generation. Lots more to come,” Pichai said on the earnings call.
Pichai said Google’s future AI strategy will focus on building better language models and building AI applications for developers and commercial customers. He said a number of organizations are already using Google’s language models on Google Cloud, Google Workspace and its cybersecurity products.
On AI in research: There is a lot of speculation about when Google will integrate generative AI into its search engine. The New York Times reported April 16 Google is secretly working on AI search features in a project dubbed “Magi” and may have an initial rollout as early as May.
Pichai didn’t go into specifics when asked about his plan with Google Search, but said the company “will continue to integrate advances in generative AI to improve search in thoughtful and deliberate ways.”
Microsoft sees user growth following OpenAI partnership.
On the OpenAI collaboration: Instead of building its own language model, Microsoft’s AI approach focuses on its partnership with OpenAI. Microsoft was already a major investor in OpenAI because ChatGPT went viral. In January, the tech giant entered into a multi-year, $10 billion partnership with OpenAI and launched two new products, a new Bing search engine powered by GPT and Azure OpenAI Service, a cloud platform that hosts applications. of AI built with OpenAI models.
Nadella said Azure OpenAI has gained more than 2,500 customers since its launch in January. “We have the most powerful AI infrastructure, and it’s used by our partner, OpenAI, as well as Nvidia and leading AI startups like Adept and Inflection to train great models,” Nadella said. during yesterday’s earnings call.
On Bing optimized for GPT: Nadella said Bing currently has 100 million daily users and downloads for the search engine have surged since Microsoft integrated GPT into the product. Daily installs of the Bing mobile app have quadrupled since January, he said.
On AI tools for developers: Like Google, Microsoft also develops AI applications that include coding capabilities. Nadella said he will explain how the company is “building the most powerful AI platform for developers” at its Build conference, scheduled for May 23-25. He also hinted at an image generator using OpenAI’s Dall-E model.
“We continue to innovate with unique AI-powered features, including the ability to set chat tone and create images from text prompts, powered by Dall-E,” Nadella said.
