CNN
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Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell more than 3% in early trading Monday after a report raised concerns that its flagship search engine could lose market share to artificial intelligence rivals including Microsoft's Bing.
Last month, Google employees learned that Samsung was considering making Bing the default search engine on its devices instead of Google's, causing “panic” within the company, according to a report report from the New York Times, citing internal communications and documents. (CNN has not verified this story.)
In an effort to cope with increased competition, Google is developing a new artificial intelligence-powered search engine called Project Magi, according to the Times. The company, which reportedly has about 160 people working on the project, aims to change the way Google search results are displayed and will include an artificial intelligence chat tool available to answer questions. According to the report, the project will be presented to the public next month.
In a statement sent to CNN, Google spokeswoman Lara Levine said the company has been using AI for years to “improve the quality of our results” and “offer entirely new ways to search,” including through the rolled out last year it allows users to search by combining images and words.
“We've done this in a responsible and helpful way, maintaining the high bar we set for providing quality information,” Levin said. “Not every brainstorm or product idea results in a launch, but as we've said before, we're excited to introduce new AI-powered features to Search and will share more details soon.”
Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Google's search engine dominated the market for two decades. But the viral success of ChatGPT, which can generate compelling written responses to user queries, appears to have put Google on the defensive for the first time in years.
In March, Google began making Bard available, its new AI chatbot tool that competes directly with ChatGPT and promises to help users outline and write essay drafts, plan a baby shower for friends, and get dinner ideas based on what's in the refrigerator.
At an event in February, a Google executive also said: the company will bring “the magic of generative AI” directly into its core search product and will use AI to pave the way for “the next frontier of our data products.”
Meanwhile Microsoft has invested in and partnered with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, to bring similar technology to Bing and other productivity tools. Other tech companies, including Meta, Baidu and IBM, as well as a host of startups, are racing to develop and deploy AI-powered tools.
But tech companies face risks when adopting this technology, which is known to make mistakes and hallucinatory reactions. This is especially true when it comes to search engines, a product that many people use to find accurate and reliable information.
Google was called after Bard's demo gave an inaccurate answer to a question about a telescope. Shares of Google parent company Alphabet fell 7.7% that day, wiping $100 billion off its market value.
A demo of Microsoft's Bing AI was also offered. several errorsincluding an apparent inability to differentiate between types of vacuum cleaners and even fictitious information about certain products.
IN interview program 60 minutes In a broadcast on Sunday, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai stressed the need for companies to “take responsibility every step of the way” when creating and releasing artificial intelligence tools.
For Google, he said, that means allowing time for “user feedback” and making sure the company “can develop stronger security layers before we build and deploy more effective models.”
He also expressed confidence that these artificial intelligence tools will eventually have a widespread impact on business, professions and society.
“It's going to impact every product from every company, so I think it's a very, very deep technology,” he said. “So we are just at the very beginning.”
