Google is launching a ChatGPT rival a few weeks after rumours suggested that ChatGPT's immense popularity has forced Google's top leadership to fasten the rollout of its own AI services and not sit back and watch, especially after investing billions of dollars into AI over the last few years and touting its progress in every keynote presentation. Called Bard, the "experimental conversational AI service" is open to "trusted testers" ahead of a public launch in the coming weeks, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a blog post on February 6. According to a screenshot shared by Google, some of the things users can ask Bard to do include: "Plan a friend's baby shower" "Compare two Oscar-nominated movies" "Get lunch ideas based on what's in your fridge" "Bard can be an outlet for creativity, and a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills." – Sundar Pichai, Google CEO Why does this matter: Even though the technology underlying OpenAI's GPT is not all that new or revolutionary, the launch of the chatbot to the wider public showed people what AI technology is capable of. It has already been adopted for various use cases across various industries, prompting OpenAI to launch a paid version of the service. Google has been at the forefront of developing AI technologies for years now. In fact, ChatGPT is…
