In a recent memo to his employees, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, addressed the launch of the company’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) system, Bard. Pichai expressed his gratitude to the development team behind Bard and revealed that 80,000 Googlers had helped test the AI internally.
The rollout of Bard to the general public, in a limited capacity, is currently underway, with the response to ChatGPT being offered only to select users in the United States and United Kingdom. Pichai acknowledged that Bard had faced some initial challenges, with a factually inaccurate output during its demo in February.
Despite the rocky start, Google is ready to move forward and make Bard available to a wider audience. Interested users in the US and UK can sign up for Bard at bard.google.com and will receive an invite from Google to test the AI.
While the launch of Bard is a significant milestone for Google, Pichai acknowledged that “things will go wrong.” He emphasized the importance of user feedback to help improve the product and its underlying technology.
To ensure that Bard remains a reliable and trustworthy tool for its users, Pichai stated that Google’s development team has spent a lot of time working on the project. Additionally, the company has been dedicated to conducting extensive internal testing to ensure that the AI meets the highest standards.
Bard is designed to provide high-quality responses to a wide range of queries. Its development is a testament to Google’s commitment to advancing the field of AI and improving user experience. As the company continues to refine Bard, users can expect even more innovative and accurate results from this impressive technology.
In conclusion, the launch of Bard AI is a significant milestone for Google, and its CEO, Sundar Pichai, is optimistic about its potential. While there may be initial challenges and setbacks, Pichai is confident that the company’s dedication to improving the technology and incorporating user feedback will lead to even greater success in the future.
Here’s the memo Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent to Googlers:
Hi, Googlers
Last week was an important week in Al with our announcements around Cloud, Developer, and Workspace. There’s even more to come this week as we begin to expand access to Bard, which we first announced in February.
Starting today, people in the US and the UK can sign up at bard.google.com. This is just a first step, and we’ll continue to roll it out to more countries and languages over time.
I’m grateful to the Bard team who has probably spent more time with Bard than anything or anyone else over the past few weeks. Also hugely appreciative of the 80,000 Googlers who have helped test it in the company-wide dogfood. We should be proud of this work and the years of tech breakthroughs that led us here, including our 2017 Transformer research and foundational models such as PalM and BERT.
Even after all this progress, we’re still in the early stages of a long Al journey. As more people start to use Bard and test its capabilities, they’ll surprise us. Things will go wrong. But the user feedback is critical to improving the product and the underlying technology.
We’ve taken a responsible approach to development, including inviting 10,000 trusted testers from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, and we’ll continue to welcome all the feedback that’s about to come our way. We will learn from it and keep iterating and improving.
For now, I’m excited to see how Bard sparks more creativity and curiosity in the people who use it. And I look forward to sharing the full breadth of our progress in Al to help people, businesses and communities as we approach I/O in May.
—Sundar
