Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
When OpenAI introduced ChatGPT nearly four years ago, it sparked a major shift in the artificial intelligence industry. The chatbot’s ability to generate human-like responses quickly gained worldwide attention and prompted tech companies, including Google, to speed up their own AI efforts. However, a recent claim by OpenAI employee Thibault ‘Tibo’ Sottiaux suggests that Google may have already had similar technology before ChatGPT became public.
Sottiaux, who previously worked on Google’s AI team, responded to a post on X by AI engineer Cheng Lou. In the post, Lou recalled an interview in which Google veteran Jeff Dean reportedly said the company had developed an internal conversational AI before ChatGPT but believed it did not offer enough value over traditional Google Search to justify a public launch.
Sottiaux claimed that Google had developed a chatbot similar to ChatGPT nearly a year before OpenAI introduced its AI assistant to the public. “I was part of that team. Basically ChatGPT one year before it came out. Called LMChat and then another codename,” he wrote.
As Sottiaux explained, Google decided not to release its chatbot due to its possible impact on Google’s core business of searching. It is stated that Google was afraid that artificial intelligence-based conversational agents could decrease the use of the internet search by people and thus decided not to make this technology public.
“Google was too nervous to release it, and DeepMind was blocked from shipping products that could disrupt Google,” Tibo added. “I think about this a lot.”
I sometime think about that Jeff Dean interview where he said they had an internal bot before ChatGPT but didn’t think it was better than just googling
Before ChatGPT’s advent, Google was one of the top companies in the field of artificial intelligence. Google had powerful artificial intelligence divisions, such as Google Brain, DeepMind, Google Research, and the computing technology required to build an effective AI. The company built many of the best AI models over the years, such as LaMDA, PaLM, and Meena.
Nevertheless, most of the above projects either stayed confined to the experimental phase or were not implemented for Google’s consumer-facing products. There were reports that problems associated with accuracy, safety concerns, and even a possible negative impact on Google’s core business of search played into the company’s reluctance to implement these projects.
The advent of ChatGPT changed everything about the AI race. OpenAI’s chatbot became extremely popular, having attracted one million users in only five days and 100 million users in two months’ time. Currently, the number of monthly active users of ChatGPT stands at approximately one billion, whereas Google’s Gemini is approaching that number too and stands at around 950 million.
Google, along with OpenAI and Anthropic, is now competing at the forefront of AI development.
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