Google is launching artificial intelligence technology that it wants to gain an advantage over the competition

Since ChatGPT was introduced to the world by technology company OpenAI last November, Google has been trying to catch up. The company hopes to take an important step in this regard with the launch of “Gemini” today. Google wants to spread the news so much that the version released to the public is not the best yet.

Gemini is the underlying technology that aims to enhance Google’s own chatbot Bard, as well as other well-known services such as its search engine and the Chrome web browser. The technology can process text, images, audio, video and programming languages. Unlike the paid version of ChatGPT, Gemini cannot create images on startup. The image generator DALL-E is used for this.

There’s a lot at stake for the company. CEO Sundar Pichai calls the shift to artificial intelligence (AI) “the most profound in our lifetime, far greater than any previous shift to mobile devices or the internet.”

It is clear that Google wants to be at the forefront of this development. But so far it hasn’t really worked. According to Google Trends, interest in ChatGPT is much higher in the Netherlands than Bard. Google fears it will fall so far behind in this area that it will no longer be relevant.

Error with Chatbot Bard

The company was also surprised by the introduction of ChatGPT. Interestingly, the core of the technology was developed by Google researchers and was announced by them in 2017.

An answer to ChatGPT was sorely needed earlier this year, and that was Bard, where the company initially made a huge mistake. There was an error in the chatbot’s advertising message: The bot answered a sample question incorrectly. This cost the tech giant tens of billions of dollars in the stock market.

ChatGPT is also very popular as a search engine. Instead of getting ten links with ads, you get a human-sounding response. A completely different type of search, including the question of how suitable Google’s classic search ads are. Any move by Google in this area could jeopardize its revenue model.

But even if Google is afraid of making big mistakes, falling behind is not an option.

Is it better than OpenAI?

Google has released several versions of Gemini. The so-called “Pro” variant will initially be available to consumers in English only on the Bard chatbot next week. This version should be better than the free version of ChatGPT (GPT 3.5), which has been available since November of last year.

The most important variant is called “Ultra”. According to Google’s own tests, this version outperforms OpenAI’s GPT4 technology in almost all tests.

However, Google still does not dare to release this version immediately. The goal is to test this with a select group of customers and developers first. Next year, companies using Google’s cloud services will also be able to work with them.

Source: NOS