Google’s share price plummeted as a result of a mistake in an advertisement, despite the company’s Wednesday announcement of a slew of AI-powered features.
A Twitter advertisement for the service, which generates responses to user queries and is debuting to a limited group of testers before a wider release, caused the company to immediately lose $100 billion in market value and sent shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, plummeting by nearly 8%.
After the bot ChatGPT impressed web users all over the world with its capacity to generate essays, speeches, and even exam papers in a matter of seconds, the search engine giant is rushing into the market.
On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled new products and a multibillion-dollar partnership with ChatGPT manufacturer OpenAI, while Google attempted to steal the show by announcing its “Bard” alternative a day earlier.
Google is fighting to maintain its two-decade dominance of the web search industry as the bots are rapidly being integrated into search engines.
But Twitter astronomers quickly realized that Google’s Bard had made a mistake in an advertisement for its new technology.
The bot was asked in the advertisement what to tell a nine-year-old about James Webb Space Telescope discoveries.
The response stated incorrectly that the telescope was the first to photograph a planet outside of Earth’s solar system, when in fact the European Very Large Telescope was the first.
Investors were also underwhelmed by the most recent announcements as a result of the error, which caused the share price to plummet by more than 7% on Wednesday.
Google Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan stated at a Paris event prior to the problem’s emergence that “trusted testers” were currently utilizing Bard, but he did not provide a timetable for a public release, which is anticipated within weeks.
Raghavan refuted claims made by analysts that Google rushed its announcement in response to Microsoft’s pressure.
He stated that no single event had “dramatically changed the course” of Google’s plans, and that “this has been a multiyear journey.”
On Wednesday, Google executives made a number of product enhancements inspired by AI, including enhancements to Lens, Google’s image recognition tool, translation, and maps.
In a similar vein, Microsoft has stated that it will incorporate AI into its Teams messaging app and Office suite.
However, it set itself on a collision course with Google, which has dominated the market for two decades, by promising to improve its much-maligned Bing search engine.
AI chatbots like ChatGPT promise to replace Google’s well-known list of links and ads, which have been its mainstay for two decades, by providing users with ready-made responses from a variety of sources.
According to reports in the media, the overnight success of ChatGPT was deemed a “code red” threat at Google, and the company’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who left the company several years ago, were brought back to brainstorm ideas and swiftly respond.
When Alphabet, the parent company of Google, posted disappointing results and announced that it would be laying off 12,000 employees, the pressure to act was increased the previous week.