Google finally demos generative AI in Search, with a waitlist starting today
Google I/O is clearly the "We're extremely jealous of ChatGPT" show, and the first hour was packed with Google announcing generative AI features for every input box the company has control over. The company's most important input box is the one on the homepage of Google.com, and wouldn't you know it, that's getting generative AI, too.
But didn't Google already release a generative AI thing? It did, but that was Bard, and Bard is not part of Google Search. Bard is just its own chatbot system, sequestered away in its own little sandbox at bard.google.com. Bard was Google's answer to ChatGPT. Putting generative search on Google.com, with its billions of daily users, is Google's answer to Bing.
Part of the reason Bard wasn't integrated into Google Search right away was that 1) Google is cautious about generative AI, and 2) generative AI is very expensive to run at scale. So the company is taking a slow approach to all of this, as opposed to what Microsoft is doing. So, for Google.com, the "Search Generative Experience" will be an opt-in setting from a new "Search Labs" feature.