Well, that didn’t take long.
Just minutes after Google announced Bard, its rival to ChatGPT, Microsoft announced that it will be holding a surprise in-person event at its Redmond headquarters exactly one day before Google hosts its own AI event.
The company’s communications lead, Frank Shaw, confirmed the event on Twitter, saying that he was “looking forward to see my media friends from around the world tomorrow! Travel safe all!”
Microsoft’s event will be held on Tuesday, February 7, 2023, and kick off at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET. In the invite, the company says that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will “share some progress on a few exciting projects,” but the company did not provide any specifics. However, Open AI CEO Sam Altman also took to Twitter today to share a picture of himself and Nadella, saying “hello from redmond! excited for the event tomorrow,” indicating that the event is likely to feature Microsoft’s ChatGPT integration into Bing, the company’s search engine.
Microsoft’s announcement came minutes after Google announced Bard, its conversational AI competitor to ChatGPT. In the blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that “Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses.”
Google is hosting its own AI event on Wednesday, February 8, where the company is expected to talk more about its new conversational AI and how its other AI technologies will integrate into search, maps, and more. While Bard is currently only available to a limited number of users, the company says that it will be making the AI chat available to a wider range of users in the coming weeks.
With Microsoft and Google playing “who can announce what, first,” the AI wars seem to be upon us, with each company trying to grab market share as quickly as possible.
