Google Releases Viral Apps in an Attempt to Catch Up to Rivals Like OpenAI

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Google, which has been at the forefront of some of the technology that has paved the way for recent advances in artificial intelligence, is now trying to catch up.

In recent months, several of Google’s competitors have released AI-based programs that can generate images and text passages from simple prompts. These capabilities are something that Google has been testing internally for years.

The recent releases of Google's AI technology are prompting the company to redouble its efforts to be an "AI-first company," as introduced by Chief Executive Sundar Pichai back in 2016.

Google is working to review and release artificial-intelligence programs to the public more quickly, while also assigning teams of engineers to work on new ways to integrate new developments into areas such as the core search experience, according to people familiar with the efforts.

Google has taken a different approach to releasing its most powerful image- and text-generation models than OpenAI and other startups. While Google has only made its models available to a limited group of testers, executives have stressed the need to test new artificial-intelligence tools for signs of bias and misuse. This approach is in line with concerns shared by many academics.

Researchers at groups such as Google Brain have sometimes been frustrated by the caution shown by their colleagues, leading some to leave and start their own companies where they can more easily release new products, according to people familiar with the matter.

Jeff Dean, the head of Google's research division, recently published a blog post summarizing the company's recent work in artificial intelligence. In the post, Dean wrote that the developments are "making their way into real user experiences that will dramatically change how we interact with computers."

The additional pressures create a more challenging business environment for Google, which has seen both its search and ad-tech operations targeted by lawsuits from the Justice Department. Last week, the company also announced its largest-ever round of layoffs, with about 12,000 employees set to lose their jobs.

"We have always been focused on developing and deploying AI to improve people's lives," a Google spokeswoman said. "We believe that AI is a transformative technology that can be extremely useful for individuals, businesses and communities. However, as our AI Principles outline, we need to consider the potential societal impacts of these innovations."

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Microsoft said this week that it would make a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, the company behind the viral ChatGPT chatbot and image-generation program Dall-E 2. Microsoft declined to comment on financial terms, but people familiar with the deal said the two parties discussed an investment of as much as $10 billion.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said last week that the company plans to infuse all of its products with artificial intelligence (AI) tools. This would include those developed by OpenAI, which is Google's closest competition in online search. Analysts say that Bing, Microsoft's search engine, would be one likely target area for these AI tools.

Google has been researching and testing the possibilities of artificial intelligence for years. In 2017, a group of Google researchers published a paper laying out a new AI model called the Transformer. This model ushered in a new generation of large, powerful programs for processing text, images and other forms of data.

At a Google conference in 2021, Mr. Pichai demonstrated two conversations with an experimental artificial-intelligence program called LaMDA. The model responded to questions with complete thoughts from the perspectives of the dwarf planet Pluto and a paper airplane, drawing applause from the live audience.

OpenAI used a $1 billion investment from Microsoft in 2019 to develop a powerful new model, GPT-3, based on the Transformer developed by Google. This led to new applications such as the first version of Dall-E.

In November 2019, OpenAI released a demo of a chatbot called ChatGPT. The simple application quickly drew more than one million users, generating creative answers to prompts such as, "Write a movie script of a taco fighting a hot dog on the beach."

After Google employees began asking whether the company had missed a chance to attract users, Mr. Dean said during a companywide meeting in December that Google had to move slower than startups because people place a high degree of trust in the company’s products, and current chatbots had issues with accuracy, according to people who heard the remarks.

Analysts believe that Google is still in a strong position to capitalize on public interest in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence has already been used to improve company products such as Search and Maps, and analysts believe there is still potential for Google to capitalize on this technology.

At an event this month, Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist and OpenAI board member, said that he thinks there will be multiple large model providers. He believes that this is good for the overall ecosystem and industry.

Mr. Hoffman believes that Google is still trying to find the right balance between its work in artificial intelligence and its responsibility to users.

Google has at times struggled to unite the efforts of its different artificial intelligence teams, including DeepMind in London, which it acquired in 2014, according to people familiar with the situation.

In 2021, Google ended yearslong efforts by DeepMind to establish a more independent corporate structure, such as potentially moving to a nonprofit structure or spinning off entirely, according to The Wall Street Journal.

DeepMind, like OpenAI, has worked on building computer systems that can closely mimic or even replicate human thought, a concept known as artificial general intelligence. Some of DeepMind's most notable breakthroughs have focused on the life sciences, including an algorithm called AlphaFold that can be used to predict protein structures.

In December, Google and DeepMind researchers introduced a language model that could produce reliable answers to a limited set of medical questions. However, the model still falls short of those typically provided by clinicians. DeepMind Chief Executive Demis Hassabis told Time magazine the company is considering releasing a chatbot called Sparrow to a limited audience this year.