Google Brain Unites with DeepMind as Part of Alphabet's Plan to Compete in the AI Space
In a bid to compete with the rapidly growing AI industry, Alphabet, parent company of Google, has merged two of its most renowned units: Google Brain and DeepMind. The goal of the merger is to create a new division that will be focused on the “bold and responsible development of general AI,” under the leadership of Demis Hassabis, the CEO of DeepMind. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, stressed the importance of this move in a blog post. He said that it will help to advance research capabilities and ensure continued AI leadership.
The teams being merged have already made a name for themselves by delivering high-profile projects, such as the transformer, which is the foundation of OpenAI's work. The newly merged teams under Alphabet will now prioritize the development of "multimodal" AI, similar to OpenAI's latest GPT-4 model. This type of AI has the ability to generate innovative content by responding to text prompts and image inputs, making it a powerful tool.
Despite Google's dominant position in the search market, with over 80% market share, Wall Street is concerned that Alphabet might fall behind Microsoft in the AI race. This is because OpenAI, funded by Microsoft, powers the updated Bing search engine. In February, Alphabet launched its own chatbot called Bard to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT. However, following the sharing of erroneous information in a promotional video and an underwhelming company event, Alphabet lost $100 billion in value.
In conclusion, Alphabet's merger of Google Brain and DeepMind is a significant move in the company's ambition to take on the AI space. With a focus on "bold and responsible" AI development and the prioritization of multimodal AI, Alphabet hopes to stand out in the industry, despite competition from giants like Microsoft and OpenAI.
