Google Magi: Competition for ChatGPT?

Artificial intelligence is the number one topic in the tech industry in 2023. In particular, the chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is the talk of the town and could transform not only the job market, but also other areas of society. The “data octopus” Google, of all people, plays a rather negligible role in this area. This is soon to come to an end. In May, the search engine giant wants to launch its first own chatbot called Magi.

Google Magi pulled out of a hat

Day by day, new amazing capabilities come to the public that ChatGPT is capable of. For example, a few days ago a study was made public that showed that the AI developed by OpenAI could predict stock prices better than humans. The texts delivered by the chatbot are also almost indistinguishable from natural human speech. Of course, this offers many possibilities, which is why Microsoft is also supporting the project with a proud sum of$10 billion.

Google has been rather quiet in this area so far. The US tech company has tended to focus on AI projects such as a smart robot arm, which was developed in collaboration with the Technical University of Berlin. Now, however, the first text AI is coming from Google. And this one is initially causing a stir with its sudden appearance. Given the apparently very short development phase, the enchanting name “Magi” makes perfect sense. This reports the New York Times.

Google has big things in store

With such a short development phase, however, Google Magi is not yet expected to do too much. The Silicon Valley giant is obviously aware of this. For the time being, the AI will only be made available to an exclusive group of customers. Similar to ChatGPT, this software will first have to be fed with data so that it can grow to its true “strength”. The exclusive clientele, which comes exclusively from the USA, is supposed to ensure exactly that. According to a report in the New York Times, the total number of users is one million. However, this rather small number is expected to increase over the course of the year. Google is probably aiming for a user base of 30 million. Google Magi should also be able to offer new features in the coming weeks and months.

A new version with extended functions should probably be available in the fall. Strictly speaking, Magi is not a direct competitor to ChatGPT. Rather, Google has already created an alternative with Bard. The search engine giant would rather have created an integration into the search engine with Magi. A comparable feature is currently giving Microsoft Bing a powerful boost. Furthermore, Google is supposed to be working on a completely new search engine, which is supposed to be able to answer very specific questions on all topics. The New York Times reports that Magi strongly resembles ChatGPT. That concerns in particular communication in dialogue form.

Fear of negative consequences on the smartphone market?

Now, of course, the question arises as to why Google is launching its alternative to ChatGPT with a bang. According to experts, this could involve the fear of losing valuable partners in the smartphone market. Common manufacturers like Samsung have always relied on Google as the default search engine for their devices so far. The tech company generates a lot of money here, as the report shows. For example, it costs Samsung an impressive $3 billion to use Google as its standard. The whole thing looks even more serious at Apple.

Here it is probably about 20 billion US dollars. Microsoft Bing could be used instead. In view of the new AI features with the help of ChatGPT, this is not so far-fetched. One thing is certain: Google is working at full speed to keep up. A total of 160 employees are working on making Magi a serious alternative to Microsoft Bing with ChatGPT. It is possible that the tech company will release the first tangible information about its service at Google I/O in May. We are curious and will keep you up to date.