Google ChatGPT competitor product exposed, search design may undergo major changes

Beijing time on February 1st, Google is testing new artificial intelligence (AI) chat products, including a new chatbot and a possible way to integrate it into the search engine. These products may influence Google's future public product releases.

Google is working on a project called Atlas under its cloud computing division in response to the threat posed by the popular bot ChatGPT. Google is also testing a chatbot called Apprentice Bard. Employees can ask it questions and get detailed answers similar to ChatGPT. In recent weeks, Google management has been soliciting feedback from more employees on the effort.

"Bard the Apprentice" uses Google's conversational technology LaMDA, or Language Model for Conversational Applications. It looks similar to ChatGPT: employees can type a question into a dialog box, get a text answer, and then provide feedback on the answer. According to some responses seen by foreign media, "Apprentice Bard"'s answers may include recent events, a feature that ChatGPT does not yet have.

Google is clearly feeling pressure from ChatGPT, requiring the team to prioritize developing its own chatbot. "Due to the popularity of ChatGPT, the LaMDA team has been asked to prioritize the response to ChatGPT," a memo said. "In the short term, it will take priority over other projects." The memo also warned some employees to stop participating in some unrelated projects. s meeting.

Another Google product division is also testing a new search desktop design that can be used in a question-and-answer format. One view shows the main Google search page offering five different prompts for potential problems, placed directly below the main search bar, replacing the current "I feel lucky" column. It also displays a small chat logo at the far right of the search bar. When you type a question, the search results display a gray bubble just below the search bar, providing more human-like answers than common search results. Directly below this, the page suggests several follow-up questions related to the first question, and below that are common search results, including links and titles.