Going forward, the Alphabet staff will work on "multimodal" AI, like OpenAI's latest model GPT-4, which can respond not only to text prompts but to image inputs as well to generate new content. Google has for decades dominated the search market, with a share of over 80 percent, but Wall Street fears that the Alphabet unit could fall behind Microsoft Corp in the fast-moving AI race. Technology from OpenAI, funded by Microsoft, powers the rival software maker's updated Bing search engine.
Alphabet announced the launch of Bard in February to take on ChatGPT as well. It lost $100 billion in value on February 8 after Bard shared inaccurate information in a promotional video and a company event failed to dazzle.
Alphabet shares were up two percent on Thursday.
