California, 9 Feb 2023 (GNP): On Wednesday, Alphabet Inc (GOOGLE) saw a loss of $100 billion in market value following the revelation that its newly launched chatbot gave out incorrect information in a promotional video, and the company’s event was perceived as underwhelming. This has fueled concerns that Google’s parent company is falling behind its competitor, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O).
During regular trading, Alphabet’s shares dropped to 9%, with a volume three times higher than its 50-day average. However, the shares recovered after hours and remained relatively stable. Despite losing 40% of its value in the previous year, the stock saw a 15% increase since the start of the current year, excluding Wednesday’s losses.
Reuters was the first to highlight a mistake in Google’s advertisement for its newly launched chatbot Bard. The error was about which satellite captured the first images of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system. The chatbot made its debut on Monday.
Bard is an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA. Built using our large language models and drawing on information from the web, it’s a launchpad for curiosity and can help simplify complex topics → https://t.co/fSp531xKy3 pic.twitter.com/JecHXVmt8l
— Google (@Google) February 6, 2023
During its live-streamed presentation on Wednesday, Google failed to provide information on how and when it would integrate Bard into its primary search function. In contrast, Microsoft held an event the day before, showcasing that it had already made a version of its Bing search with ChatGPT functions integrated and available to the public.
The Bard mistake was detected just before Google’s presentation, which is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
According to Gil Luria, a senior software analyst at D.A. Davidson, “Despite being a leading player in AI innovation over the past several years, Google appears to have lagged in incorporating this technology into its search product. The company has been rushing to catch up with its search efforts in recent weeks, which led to the rushed announcement yesterday (Tuesday) and the unfortunate mistake of providing an incorrect answer during the demonstration.”
On Wednesday, Microsoft’s shares increased about 3% and remained stable after the market closed. Meanwhile, Alphabet posted a short animated GIF video of Bard on Twitter, claiming it would make complex subjects easier to understand. However, it ended up providing an incorrect answer.