Google employees slam CEO Sundar Pichai's 'hurried, bungled' launch of GPT rival Bard.

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai, is being criticized by employees for how the company handled the announcement of its ChatGPT competitor, Bard, this week.

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According to texts and memes obtained by Trade Algo, employees referred to the Bard announcement as "rushed," "mishandled," and "not Google-like" on the popular internal forum Memegen.

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On Monday, Google preempted a Microsoft presentation scheduled for Tuesday by having Pichai disclose the company's chatbot technology. At a Wednesday event in Paris, further information about Bard was unveiled.

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Microsoft is an early investor in ChatGPT creator OpenAI. As the company wants to know how its Bing search engine would combine with the buzzing chat system, they've invited reporters for a demonstration at the company's headquarter in Redmond, Washington.

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Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's head of search, provided brief samples of Bard's capabilities during a presentation on Wednesday. People that tuned in anticipated hearing more, and several employees were unaware of the occasion. One of the presenters forgot to bring a phone that was necessary for the demonstration.

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People began pointing out on Twitter that the advertisement for Bard included an inaccurate description of the telescope used to capture the first images of an extrasolar planet. While Google employees sometimes use Memegen to poke fun at the company's idiosyncrasies and mistakes, the posts following the Bard news took a more serious tone and even attacked Pichai directly.

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"Dear Sundar, the Bard launch and the layoffs were hurried, bungled, and shortsighted," said one meme accompanied by a photo of Pichai with a concerned expression. Please return to considering the long term. The message earned several upvotes from employees.

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A Google spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment immediately.

Another popular meme said, "Sundar and leadership deserve a Perf NI," referencing the lowest category in the company's staff performance rating system. In their quest to sharpen focus,' they are being hilariously myopic and un-Googlely.

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Last year, Pichai urged employees to be more attentive. Leadership frequently encourages employees to be "Googley," which roughly entails being ambitious, diligent, and respectful, with cooperation in mind.

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Concerns over ChatGPT's danger to Google's main search business and the company's hurried response to Microsoft's event have caused Alphabet shares to decline by more than 9 percent this week. "The market's fear about us was justified by our panicked release of Bard," read one popular meme. The enclosed photograph depicted a bird with a facepalm.

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The concern over Google's position in artificial intelligence is familiar. During the December all-hands meeting, employees inquired about the company's competitive advantage in AI in light of ChatGPT's rising popularity. Executives cautioned that the company's image might suffer if it proceeds too quickly on imperfect AI-chat technologies.

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This week's most popular meme featured a photo of trash burning with the Google "G" logo. The inscription stated, "How everything has felt since the previous year."

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Another meme referenced the 12,000 jobs lost, or 6% of the company's workers, due to layoffs announced last month. The meme depicted an image of actor Nicolas Cage smiling and stated, "Firing 12,000 people increases the stock price by 3%, whereas a single hasty AI presentation decreases it by 8%."

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