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Google execs say in all-hands meeting Bard A.I. isn't all for search

Google execs say in all-hands meeting Bard A.I. isn’t all for search

Google executives are continuing to deal with the fallout from last month’s fumbled announcement of the company’s artificial intelligence engine called Bard, but their efforts to clean up the mess are causing further confusion among the workforce.

In an all-hands meeting on Thursday, executives answered questions from Dory, the company’s internal forum, with most of the top-rated issues related to the priorities around Bard, according to audio obtained by CNBC. It’s the first companywide meeting since Google employees criticized leadership, most notably CEO Sundar Pichai, for the way it handled the announcement of Bard, Google’s ChatGPT competitor.

Wall Street has punished Google parent Alphabet for the Bard rollout, pushing the stock lower on concern that the company’s core search engine is at risk of getting displaced as consumers eventually turn to AI-powered responses that allow for more conversational and creative answers. Staffers called Google’s initial public presentation “rushed,” “botched” and “un-Googley.”

“It’s an experiment that’s a collaborative AI service that we talked about,” Krawczyk said. “The magic that we’re finding in using the product is really around being this creative companion to helping you be the sparkplug for imagination, explore your curiosity, etc.”

But Krawczyk was quick to follow up by saying, “we can’t stop users from trying to use it like search.”

“But as you want to get into more of the search-oriented journeys, we already have a product for that — it’s called search,” he said.

The attempt to separate Bard from search appeared to signify a pivot in the initial strategy, based on what employees told CNBC and on internal memes that circulated in recent weeks. In the lead up to the Bard announcement, Google executives repeatedly said the technology it was developing internally would integrate with search.

Several Google employees, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak on the matter, told CNBC that the inconsistent answers from executives has led to greater confusion.

Following Google’s launch of Bard in February, Alphabet’s stock price dropped almost 9%, suggesting that investors were hoping for more in light of growing competition from Microsoft, which is a large investor in ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

Employees are well aware of how the introduction was received.

“The first public demo was demoralizing, sent our stock into a nosedive, and invited massive media coverage,” read an employee comment from Dory that was read aloud. Then came the question, “What really happened?” and the request to “please share your candid thoughts on what went wrong at the Bard launch.”

Pichai referred the answer Krawczyk, who danced around the subject without giving a direct answer.

“Questions like this can be fair and we want to reiterate the fact that Bard has not launched,” Krawczyk said. “We acknowledged to the world that this is something that we’re experimenting with — we’re testing it. But there’s a lot of excitement in the industry right now.”

Krawczyk also referenced an event held at Microsoft’s headquarters that week, in which the company showed off how OpenAI’s technology can power Bing search results and other products.

“You see the stories of ChatGPT coincides with an event that we’re having that was actually focused on search,” Krawczyk said. “There can be challenges around the external perception but, as you heard today, we continue to focus on Bard’s testing.”

Krawczyk added that Google is excited to get the technology in “users’ hands to capture their creativity.”

Pichai chimed in to say, “It’s an intense time.”

“The purpose of the blog post was once we decided we were going to external trusted testers, things could leak and it was important we positioned it,” Pichai said. “We haven’t launched the product yet. And obviously when we launch, we’ll make clear it’s an experimental product.”

Pichai said that the company hopes to provide more details after Google IO, the annual developer conference. Google has yet to announce dates for the event.

Another top-rated employee comment from Dory said, “Launching AI seems like a knee-jerk reaction without a strategy.”

Pichai began his response by noting that Google spends more money on AI research and development than any other company.

“I disagree with the premise of this question” he said, letting out a laugh. “We are deeply working on AI for a long time. You are right in the sense that, we have to stay focused on users and make sure we are building things which are impactful.” He said, “user input is going to be an important part of the process so it’s important to get it right.”

This content was originally published here.