“The race starts today.” —Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella during the announcement.
No kidding. Microsoft and Google have both already announced—and revealed—their AI-powered search engines.
And it seems online search may never be the same…
Table of Contents
The big reveal
During a surprise event, Microsoft previewed new Bing and Edge browsers powered by Open AI’s GPT 3.5 – a chatbot more powerful than the ChatGPT we’re familiar with.
The demo showed users asking Bing for recipes, buying furniture, and collecting travel tips using a ChatGPT-like chat box that shows the sources cited. Sheesh.
And, unlike its predecessor, this new AI model is capable of retrieving the latest news. Nice.
Bing has the Edge
Microsoft is also launching two AI-powered features for Edge:
- Chat, which lets you summarize a web page or a document and ask questions about the content.
- Compose, an AI writing assistant that lets you generate text on the go.
Hold my bot
Of course, Google’s not wasting any time either. The company has introduced Bard, its own AI-powered service. And it could change the way you google for stuff.
Similar to Bing, Google showcased examples of Bard helping users plan a friend’s baby shower or compare two Oscar-nominated movies.
For now, Google is rolling Bard out to “trusted testers” before making it more widely available. Makes sense.
Why we care
As the race heats up, certain industries—like SEOs and media publishers—are worried about “traffic accidents.”
Right now, Bard’s answer sits on top of the results page, while Bing’s chatbox takes up the right side of the page, so top-rated articles are still visible.
But there’s no doubt that Google will try to accelerate the transition to AI-powered search, which could affect rankings, content, and more.
… And that’s not even getting into AI chatbots’ biases, inaccuracies, and potential to upend certain industries.
PS: What kind of a name is Bard? We want it to be Brad. Just make it Brad.