Earlier this year, Microsoft enhanced its Bing search engine with OpenAI’s GPT. The release reportedly set off alarm bells at Google due to the risks it poses to its core search and advertising business.

Google has been working on its own AI-powered features for its search engine under a project codenamed Magi, according to a report citing internal documents.

Ads will continue to be shown in search results generated by Magi, especially those that could lead to a financial transaction. Magi will simply focus on improving Google’s existing search engine features with AI capabilities

The project reportedly involves a team of about 160 engineers working to tweak and test the latest versions of the tool. The capabilities are “being created by designers, engineers, and executives working in so-called sprint rooms to tweak and test the latest versions.”

Google is planning a public release of the tool next month in a limited capacity. Around one million people will get to access the project’s features as part of the first batch. Around 30 million users are expected to have access by the end of the year.

Microsoft has been investing heavily in AI research and development through OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. This investment has given Microsoft an edge in developing AI products, which Google is now seeking to compete with.

A last-minute event was held by Google the day after Microsoft held an event to announce the GPT-enhanced Bing search engine and Edge browser. Google’s event was a mess. Previous announcements were rehashed, a presenter’s phone went missing, and CEO Sundar Pichai was nowhere to be seen.

Googlers took to the internal forum ‘Memegen’ to criticise Pichai’s leadership. One wrote, “Dear Sundar, the Bard launch and the layoffs were rushed, botched, and myopic” and called on Pichai to “please return to taking a long-term outlook.”

In the month after Microsoft released its AI-enhanced Bing, users surged to over 100 million for the first time.

“Of the millions of active users of the new Bing preview, it’s great to see that roughly one-third are new to Bing,” wrote Yusuf Mehdi, Head of Bing at Microsoft, in a blog post.

“We see this appeal of the new Bing as a validation of our view that search is due for a reinvention and of the unique value proposition of combining Search + Answers + Chat + Creation in one experience.”

Project Magi will be seen as an opportunity for Google to get back on its feet and prove it hasn’t fallen behind Microsoft.

(Image Credit: Google)

Related: Google plays it safe with initial Bard rollout

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Glean, a firm established by Google search engineers and other industry veterans, possesses considerable expertise in this area.

AI News caught up with Arvind Jain, CEO and Founder of Glean, to hear more about how the company is using AI to surface workplace knowledge and supercharge productivity.

AI News: Can you tell us about Glean and its goals?

Arvind Jain: Glean is solving perhaps the most urgent problem in today’s workplace: helping people find and access the information they need to do their best work. 

Over the past four years, we’ve built a search platform that leverages the latest advancements in machine learning and retrains deep learning language models on each company’s specific knowledge base. In this way, we develop a deep understanding of context, language, behaviour, and relationships with others that are uniquely tuned to your workplace and adheres to your data governance policies: a trusted knowledge model.  

Our trusted knowledge model enables us to give users the most relevant and personalised answers to their queries and empowers them to stay connected not only to company knowledge but also to one another.

Our mission is to bring everyone the knowledge they need to make a difference in the world.

AN: Has more remote working post-pandemic increased the need for knowledge-sharing solutions like Glean?

AJ: Absolutely, and this is compounded by the explosion of SaaS applications across the enterprise. Company knowledge has become fragmented and siloed, which presents huge challenges for companies who care about employee experience — who want to ensure that their employees can find answers to their questions, access the information they need, and feel connected.

A Forrester found that the top reason employees feel disengaged from work is that data and/or information is hard to find. Now more than ever it’s absolutely critical to ensure that you invest in good search and knowledge management tools.

AN: How do you ensure that potentially sensitive company data that not all team members should maybe have access to is kept safe?

AJ: Glean was built from the ground up to prioritize security and governance — we connect to all your enterprise knowledge and enforce the existing permissions of your data sources. This has been foundational to our success.

Glean’s governance engine ensures that users only see the information they are allowed to, based on their existing access permissions in the source systems that Glean searches. 

AN: After a reasonable time of integrating Glean, what is the success rate of receiving an answer that someone needs?

AJ: The average Glean user makes 20 searches/day and saves 2-3 hours/week — customer time savings and productivity gains are key success metrics for us.

AN: How does Glean differentiate from its competitors?

AJ: Over the past four years, we’ve built a search platform that leverages the latest advancements in machine learning and retrains deep learning language models on each company’s specific knowledge base.

In this way, we develop a deep understanding of context, lexicon, behaviour, and relationships with others that are uniquely tuned to your workplace and adheres to your data governance policies: a trusted knowledge model. Our trusted knowledge model enables us to provide users with the most relevant and personalised answers to their queries. 

I was also frustrated by how long it took other tools to get up and running. It was very important to me that our search solution should be fully customisable, but also should only need minimal operational overhead to set up – no third-party engagements or professional services.

AN: Amid global economic uncertainties, have you noticed an uptick in interest from enterprises seeking ways to lower their costs and improve operational efficiencies?

AJ: Yes, 100 percent! The economy has simultaneously seen a drop in productivity and in employee engagement, and many businesses are looking to improve efficiency and productivity. 

There are many studies, including one from McKinsey, that have found that almost 20 percent of the work week is spent looking for internal information or colleagues who can help – this is why it’s so vital to empower employees with good tools to connect to company knowledge and resources. It’s a critical investment right now.

AN: What can we expect from Glean over the coming year?

AJ: Generative AI has the potential to supercharge knowledge workers, and everyone wants to figure out how to bring it into the workplace, but GPT-4 and similar Generative AI models are simply not ready for the enterprise.  They need to be grounded in the right search technology. 

Our goal is to deliver a product that’s as useful for the enterprise as ChatGPT is for the web.

With that goal in mind, we’re going to expand the use of generative AI in our offerings and deliver new features, grounded in our trusted knowledge model, that will augment people’s potential at work.

The conversational interface is just one piece of that. Our mission is to bring people the knowledge they need to make a difference in the world. In the background, we’re also continually working to improve ranking, it’s foundational to what we offer.

Glean is sponsoring Digital Transformation Week on 17-18 May 2023 and will be sharing its expertise with attendees. The event is co-located with the AI & Big Data Expo. Swing by Glean’s booth at stand #174.

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The web giant says the event will provide an update on how Google is “using the power of AI to reimagine how people search for, explore, and interact with information, making it more natural and intuitive than ever before to find what you need.”

OpenAI reportedly set off alarm bells at Google with ChatGPT. At the invite of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the company’s founders – Larry Page and Sergey Brin – returned for a series of meetings to review Google’s AI product strategy.

In the wake of those meetings, it was allegedly decided that Google will speed up its AI review process so it can deploy solutions more quickly.

Microsoft has invested over $10 billion in OpenAI and has begun integrating the company’s powerful AI models into its products.

In the coming weeks, Microsoft is set to go after Google’s main product – Google Search – by integrating a more powerful version of ChatGPT into Bing. The version that will be integrated into Bing will be powered by GPT-4.

Baidu, the “Google of China,” is expected to reveal its own AI-powered chatbot in March that will be integrated into the company’s search product. The model powering Baidu’s alternative is called ERNIE.

In 2021, Baidu’s researchers posted a paper on ERNIE 3.0 in which they claim the model exceeds human performance on the SuperGLUE natural language benchmark. ERNIE 3.0 set a new top score on SuperGLUE and displaced efforts from Google and Microsoft.

Baidu isn’t a threat to Google’s search business like Microsoft is, but could make Google look like it’s just playing catch up to rivals. To avoid that, Google appears to be fast-tracking its announcements.

Google was initially expected to make its AI announcements during its I/O developer conference in May. However, by that time, rivals like Microsoft and Baidu will have already launched their own alternatives. What’s currently new and exciting will be yawn-inducing come May.

Now it looks like we’ll be seeing at least some of what Google has cooking a lot sooner. Google will be hosting its 40-minute event on YouTube on February 8th at 8:30am ET (1:30pm GMT).

(Image Credit: Google)

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OpenAI and Microsoft have formed a deep relationship in recent years. In 2019, Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI as part of an exclusive computing partnership “to build new Azure AI supercomputing technologies”.

A year later, Microsoft teamed up with OpenAI to exclusively license GPT-3. The licensing deal allowed Microsoft to leverage GPT-3’s technical innovations to develop and deliver advanced AI solutions.

Microsoft and OpenAI now want to use their combined expertise to create some real competition to Google Search.

According to The Information, the duo will launch a new version of Bing that will use OpenAI’s ChatGPT to enhance its capabilities.

In a blog post last year, Microsoft already said that it planned to integrate OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 image generator into Bing.

“Microsoft is also integrating DALL∙E 2 into its consumer apps and services starting with the newly announced Microsoft Designer app, and it will soon be integrated into Image Creator in Microsoft Bing,” wrote John Roach, AI for Business Author at Microsoft.

Since its debut, ChatGPT has simultaneously impressed and spooked users. However, it’s AI image generators like DALL-E that have stirred controversy over the past few months.

ChatGPT became available for public testing on 30 November 2022.

(Photo by Maxime Gilbert on Unsplash)

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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