Google Revolution? Search, Maps, and AI Take Center Stage at February 8th Live Event
Google plans to hold an event on February 8, 2023, called Live from Paris, where it will share information about several of its core products, including Search and Maps.
The event will be streamed live on YouTube at 8:30 AM ET (which is 14:30 CET). The event description, as short as it may be, highlights that the event's focus is on the company's core products Search and Maps.
We're reimagining how people search for, explore and interact with information, making it more natural and intuitive than ever before to find what you need. Join us to learn how we're opening up greater access to information for people everywhere, through Search, Maps and beyond.
The thumbnail that Google uses for the event features other Google products. References to Google Lens, Shopping, and Translate are found on it.
While not mentioned explicitly by Google, it is expected that Google will unveil its plans on integrating Artificial Intelligence technology into its products. Microsoft started to test an integration of ChatGPT, a popular language mode optimized for dialogue, in its Bing Search engine recently.
ChatGPT could become a serious threat to Google's dominance in search. Google Search has usage shares of over 90% in many regions of the world, both on desktop and on mobile. Microsoft Bing, second in search globally, has a usage share of less than 10% in most regions.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has gradually reduced its dependence on advertising revenue, but advertising still makes up almost 80% of the company's total revenue. Advertising is heavily dependent on Google Search, which contributes more than 50% to the total revenue, as well as YouTube and Google Network ads.
Google Core Read and Google's LaMDA response
Any threat to Google's core search business is taken seriously by the company because of that. It is no surprise that Google CEO Sundar Pichai declared a "code red" regarding the rise of artificial intelligence in competing search products.
Pichai revealed in Google's latest earnings call that the company had big plans for artificial intelligence, which it would reveal in the coming months. While Pichai did not provide any details on Google's plans during the call, he stated that Internet users would be able to use its "newest, most powerful language models as a companion to search".
One of the first products could be a ChatGPT competitor by the company's LaMDA team. LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is built on Transformer, a "neural network architecture that Google Research invented and open-sourced in 2017". Like ChatGPT, LaMDA is trained specifically for dialogue.
Whether the event will indeed be about AI integration in Google core products, or just a teaser of things to come later in 2023 or 2024, remains to be seen.
Now You: what do you expect from Google's event?
What do I expect from “Live from Paris”? At a minimum, some pretty good food and drink.
It’s all about talking instead of typing.
99% of “hey google” searches lead to youtube videos which makes it useless. If they could get it to actually respond with useful results that would be great but…
There’s still the issue that in orer to able to respond, it must be “always listening” which is creepy to say the least.
Paris, one of the most insecure cities of Europe, where hundreds of tourist attacks and robberies were done in the final of football’s Champions match with all the impunity, still unsolved. Nice place choosen by Google, as it couldn’t be in othervway, probably recommended for ChatGPT.
@John G. most large metropolitan areas are dangerous, especially at night. The final of football’s Champions match you mention was indeed most unfortunate, but generalizing from there on to Paris being “one of the most insecure cities of Europe” is IMO erroneous. I know Paris by heart though I no longer live there (250kms SW from Paris now) and I promise that 99% of those who get into problems, in Paris as elsewhere by the way, are naive daydreamers who never left their hometown before visiting a large place.
Speaking of Europe, Amsterdam can be a thrill at night, Hamburg as well. What about London? Even Lausanne in Switzerland in now invaded by drug dealers! Lausanne! Even Puerto-Rico which I’ve known as a paradise on Earth is now intoxicated by drugs. Wherever It really depends of the time and of the place.
Back to the article and Google’s February 8th live event. I expect a lot of communication and no scoop. I imagine the company emphasizing on its services and explaining that the reasons it is late on offering AI are valid ones, for the user’s better experience because users deserve a finished product, that AI particularly requires attention in order to protect users from the worst of it …. something in that style :=) I’ll probably be wrong : imagination is nice as long as you don’t take it seriously :=)
I’m sorry @Tom, It was not my intention to be umpolite, I just pointed out that if I was Google I will choose for example Toulouse or Lyon, such two beautiful places to visit and to live with good security level. Paris is rank 9th about dangerous cities of Europe (2019), while for example Madrid is number 55th. Anyway Manchester, Amsterdamm, Naples, Turin, Barcelona or London maybe scary enough to enjoy them as they would deserved. Back to the article I agree you, I expect no scoop.