AI-powered chatbots may be the next big thing for online search engines. Microsoft recently invested $10 billion in OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT and Google is launching an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered chatbot called Bard to rival ChatGPT. The experimental conversational AI service will be integrated into Google search, and will first be available to “trusted testers” before becoming available to the public at large in the coming weeks.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai today announced the soft launch of Bard to a set “trusted testers. Pichai wrote – “Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distils complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web: whether that’s seeking out additional perspectives, like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar, or going deeper on a related topic, like steps to get started as a beginner.”

Bard is built on Google’s existing large language model LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications). This is smaller than the full model, which means that it requires less computational power to provide answers – something that will be important when Google tries to scale Bard to the point where it can answer questions from millions of users.

“Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses. Bard can be an outlet for creativity, and a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills.”, Pichai wrote in his blog.

Here is a screenshot Google provided. It shows how Google Search uses AI to respond to long queries with a long AI-created response:

This screenshot gives you an idea of how Google could soon integrate AI-generated answers directly into Google Search.

Apart from Bard, Google is also focused on supporting other reliable AI systems through the Google Cloud partnerships. These AI systems include Cohere, C3.ai and Anthropic.