Google will open up its own conversational AI platform called Bard to the public in “coming weeks”, as it seeks to capitalise on fevered interest in such tools owing to the popularity of ChatGPT.
CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post that the “experimental” service is powered by Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications or LaMDA, which it started developing two years ago.
“We’re releasing [Bard] initially with our lightweight model version of LaMDA,” Pichai wrote.
“This much smaller model requires significantly less computing power, enabling us to scale to more users, allowing for more feedback.
“We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.
“We’re excited for this phase of testing to help us continue to learn and improve Bard’s quality and speed.”
So far, Bard is only accessible to a cohort of users that Google refers to as its “trusted testers”, with public testing to be offered at an undisclosed time – though the wait is measured in weeks, rather than months.
There is some urgency courtesy of the widespread testing and use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in both the enterprise and consumer spaces, and the integration of technology into search and productivity suites by Microsoft.
Pichai said that applications for Bard included “drawing on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses” to questions, and making complex topics more explainable.
He also said there is activity underway to wrap LaMDA and other AI technologies into Google’s search engine; this would be live “soon”.
In addition, next month Google plans to open up access to a generative language API to third-party developers and enterprises.
The API will initially be powered by LaMDA, though Pichai added that other models would be made available later.