Chatbot wars: Google launches Bard to take on ChatGPT

Search giant’s first foray into generative AI sets the scene for new conflict among Big Tech companies

Google, Amazon, Facebook
Google’s owner Alphabet reportedly spent $31bn on AI R&D in 2021
(Image credit: Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images)

Google has introduced Bard, its first public foray into the generative AI arena and the first shot in the chatbot wars that look set to define Big Tech in the decade ahead.

In a blog post this week, Google said it would first give access to Bard to a group of trusted external partners, but the company said it has plans to give the public access “in the coming weeks”.

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Jamie Timson is the UK news editor, curating The Week UK's daily morning newsletter and setting the agenda for the day's news output. He was first a member of the team from 2015 to 2019, progressing from intern to senior staff writer, and then rejoined in September 2022. As a founding panellist on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast, he has discussed politics, foreign affairs and conspiracy theories, sometimes separately, sometimes all at once. In between working at The Week, Jamie was a senior press officer at the Department for Transport, with a penchant for crisis communications, working on Brexit, the response to Covid-19 and HS2, among others.