ChatGPT rival to be launched by Alphabet. Google is being forced to take a risk by Microsoft.

According to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Google plans to release large language models based on artificial intelligence "in the coming weeks and months." 

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On Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that language models would soon be available as a companion to search.

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Despite the best being yet to come in AI, he says we are only at the beginning of this journey. 

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Google rival Microsoft Corp. is adding artificial intelligence capability to its products, including the Bing search engine, by partnering with startup OpenAI. As Microsoft incorporates AI into its products, speculation has surfaced that it may seriously challenge Google's dominance. 

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He has to hope users won't see it as a replacement for Google search, according to CEO Sundar Pichai. 

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Google's fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday featured Pichai's remarks: "We will soon offer people the opportunity to interact directly with our language models in an experimental and innovative way." 

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This new search tool would be something that Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) can develop as an answer to Microsoft (MSFT)-backed ChatGPT, a popular chatbot that is set to integrate with Bing, Microsoft's search engine. 

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LaMDA, or Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is the brand name of Google's AI technology that could be used for a chatbot.

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It is possible, however, that Alphabet's primary revenue engine of search-related advertising might be hurt by the use of AI-powered tools.

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According to Trade Algo analysts led by Brad Erickson, after the earnings report, [Alphabet] management failed to address the risk that AI language applications could cannibalize search's usage and/or monetization, a key overhang that appears likely to persist. 

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Despite the slowdown in advertising spending revealed in Google's earnings report, Alphabet shares were down more than 4% in premarket trading Friday.

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There are no plans to replace Google's traditional search overnight. Despite being able to answer specific questions, ChatGPT and other AI-based chatbots cannot answer factual questions. As well, generating an answer with a tool such as ChatGPT requires much more computing power than doing a Google search. 

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Nevertheless, its owners now face a serious threat to their dominance in the search-engine market, and how they respond will determine the company's long-term fate.