Google Opens Early Access To Bard AI, Prompts Small Bump In Stock Price

Key takeaways

• Google’s generative AI chatbot, Bard, is now open to US and UK users as the AI wars move at breakneck speed
• The Big Tech giant, keen to avoid another AI-related stock price fall, stressed a ‘slowly, slowly’ approach
• Alphabet’s stock price rose over 3% at the news despite users branding the chatbot as dull compared to Bing and ChatGPT

We have good news for those eagerly awaiting Google’s bite of the AI cherry: Google Bard is now available to US and UK citizens in an open beta. Intended as a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing Chat, the generative AI model is Google’s stake in the ground for the AI wars.

Google’s had a rocky AI journey after being caught out by the runaway success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, launched in November last year. So far we’ve seen an internal ‘code red’ memo, a lackluster launch and promises of generative AI tools without any firm deadlines.