Google execs warn company’s reputation could suffer if it moves too fast on AI-chat technology
Google senior fellow Jeff Dean speaks at a 2017 event in China.
Source: Chris Wong | Google
Google employees are seeing all the buzz around ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot that was released to the public at the end of November and quickly turned into a Twitter sensation.
Some of them are wondering where Google is in the race to create sophisticated chatbots that can answer user queries. After all, Google’s prime business is web search, and the company has long touted itself as a pioneer in AI. Google’s conversation technology is called LaMDA, which stands for Language Model for Dialogue Applications.
At a recent all-hands meeting, employees raised concerns about the company’s competitive edge in AI, given the sudden popularity of ChatGPT, which was launched by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based startup that’s backed by Microsoft.
“Is this a missed opportunity for Google, considering we’ve had Lamda for a while?” read one top-rated question that came up at last week’s meeting.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Jeff Dean, the long-time head of Google’s AI division, responded to the question by saying that the company has similar capabilities but that the cost if something goes wrong would be greater because people have to trust the answers they get from Google.
Billions of people across the globe use Google’s search engine, while ChatGPT just crossed 1 million users in early December.
“This really strikes a need that people seem to have but it’s also important to realize these models have certain type of issues,” Dean said.
A Google spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment
Morgan Stanley published a report on the topic on Monday, looking at whether ChatGPT is a threat to Google. Brian Nowak, the bank’s lead analyst on Alphabet, wrote that the bearish case for Google is that language models could take market share “and disrupt Google’s position as the entry point for people on the Internet.”
However, Nowak said the firm is still confident in Google’s position because the company is continuing to improve search, while creating behavioral change is a huge hurdle for any new and competitive technology. Additionally, Google is “building similar natural language models such as LaMDA” and “we look for further products to come over time,” he wrote.
Sundar Pichai speaks onstage during the first day of Vox Media’s 2022 Code Conference in Beverly Hills, California.
Jerod Harris | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Pichai said at the meeting that the company has “a lot” planned in the space for 2023, and that “this is an area where we need to be bold and responsible so we have to balance that.”
In a tweet over the weekend, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that ChatGPT has limitations and users should be careful with how much they rely on the answers they’re getting.
“It’s a mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now,” Altman wrote. “It’s a preview of progress; we have lots of work to do on robustness and truthfulness.”
Google, which has a market cap of over $1.2 trillion, doesn’t have that luxury. Its technology has stayed largely in-house so far, Dean told employees, emphasizing that the company has much more “reputational risk” and is moving “more conservatively than a small startup.”
“We are absolutely looking to get these things out into real products and into things that are more prominently featuring the language model rather than under the covers, which is where we’ve been using them to date,” Dean said. “But, it’s super important we get this right.”
He went on to say “you can imagine for search-like applications, the factuality issues are really important and for other applications, bias and toxicity and safety issues are also paramount.”
Dean said the technology isn’t where it needs to be for a broad rollout and that current publicly-available models have issues.
The AI “can make stuff up,” Dean said. “If they’re not really sure about something, they’ll just tell you, you know elephants are the animals that lay the largest eggs or whatever,” he said with a laugh.
Regarding Google’s internal chat tools that have been available to employees, Dean said that during the pandemic “people would kind of chat with the system for a while and have these engaging conversations” at lunchtime.
Pichai said that 2023 will mark a “point of inflection” for the the way AI is used for conversations and in search.
“We can dramatically evolve as well as ship new stuff,” he said.
Taking Google ‘for granted’
Employees had other concerns about Google search.
The company is coming off its slowest period of growth since 2013, aside from one period during the pandemic. Search-related revenue only increased 4% from the prior year, a slower growth rate than the company’s overall ad business.
At the meeting, Pichai read the following question aloud: “With headlines like ‘Google search is dying,’ it’s not what it used to be, how concerning is this to you, Sundar? And what is the understanding of the common thread behind these concerns and what we can do about them?”
“I think it’s a good question — I’ve read all the articles,” Pichai said. “The progress has been great but it’s also true that people take everything we do for granted and you’re constantly looking ahead.”
Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior vice president who run’s Google’s Knowledge and Information organization, also responded. In July, Raghavan said publicly that Tiktok and Instagram have begun eating into Google’s share of the search market as younger consumers increasingly turn to search on visual platforms.
“There’s no denying, we have to step up and answer and model those queries,” Raghavan told employees. “Users’ expectations keep evolving — they’re asking us new things,” he said. “It does behoove us to step up and address the needs.”
Industry estimates still show that Google holds at least 90% of the search market, and the company remains under scrutiny by regulators. Executives have been more willing of late to talk publicly about Google’s competition in a market where it’s been accused of operating a monopoly.
Tik Tok creators gather before a press conference to voice their opposition to the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 12, 2024.
Craig Hudson | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Friday will hear oral arguments in the case involving the future of TikTok in the U.S., which could ban the popular app as soon as next week.
The justices will consider whether the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the law that targets TikTok’s ban and imposes harsh civil penalties for app “entities” that continue to carry the service after Jan.19, violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections.
It’s unclear when the court will hand down a decision, and if China’s ByteDance continues to refuse to divest TikTok to an American company, it faces a complete ban nationwide.
What will change about the user experience?
The roughly 115 million U.S. TikTok monthly active users could face a range of scenarios depending on when the Supreme Court hands down a decision.
If no word comes before the law takes effect on Jan. 19 and the ban goes through, it’s possible that users would still be able to post or engage with the app if they already have it downloaded. However, those users would likely be unable to update or redownload the app after that date, multiple legal experts said.
Thousands of short-form video creators who generate income from TikTok through ad revenue, paid partnerships, merchandise and more will likely need to transition their businesses to other platforms, like YouTube or Instagram.
“Shutting down TikTok, even for a single day, would be a big deal, not just for people who create content on TikTok, but everyone who shares or views content,” said George Wang, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute who helped write the institute’s amicus briefs on the case.
“It sets a really dangerous precedent for how we regulate speech online,” Wang said.
Who supports and opposes the ban?
Dozens of high-profile amicus briefs from organizations, members of Congress and President-elect Donald Trump were filed supporting both the government and ByteDance.
The government, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleges that until ByteDance divests TikTok, the app remains a “powerful tool for espionage” and a “potent weapon for covert influence operations.”
Trump’s brief did not voice support for either side, but it did ask the court to oppose banning the platform and allow him to find a political resolution that allows the service to continue while addressing national security concerns.
The short-form video app played a notable role in both Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ presidential campaigns in 2024, and it’s one of the most common news sources for younger voters.
In a September Truth Social post, Trump wrote in all caps Americans who want to save TikTok should vote for him. The post was quoted in his amicus brief.
What comes next?
It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will issue its ruling, but the case’s expedited hearing has some predicting that the court could issue a quick ruling.
The case will have “enormous implications” since TikTok’s user base in the U.S. is so large, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law.
“It’s unprecedented for the government to prohibit platforms for speech, especially one so many people use,” Chemerinsky said. “Ultimately, this is a tension between free speech issues on the one hand and claims of national security on the other.”
WATCH: It appears TikTok could really get shut down, says Jim Cramer
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks about Project Digits personal AI supercomputer for researchers and students during a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 6, 2025. Gadgets, robots and vehicles imbued with artificial intelligence will once again vie for attention at the Consumer Electronics Show, as vendors behind the scenes will seek ways to deal with tariffs threatened by US President-elect Donald Trump. The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opens formally in Las Vegas on January 7, 2025, but preceding days are packed with product announcements. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was greeted as a rock star this week CES in Las Vegas, following an artificial intelligence boom that’s made the chipmaker the second most-valuable company in the world.
At his nearly two-hour keynote on Monday kicking off the annual conference, Huang packed a 12,000-seat arena, drawing comparisons to the way Steve Jobs would reveal products at Apple events.
Huang concluded with an Apple-like trick: a surprise product reveal. He presented one of Nvidia’s server racks and, using some stage magic, held up a much smaller version, which looked like a tiny cube of a computer.
“This is an AI supercomputer,” Huang said, while donning an alligator skin leather jacket. “It runs the entire Nvidia AI stack. All of Nvidia’s software runs on this.”
Huang said the computer is called Project Digits and runs off a relative of the Grace Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) that are currently powering the most advanced AI server clusters. The GPU is paired with an ARM-based Grace central processing unit (CPU). Nvidia worked with Chinese semiconductor company MediaTek to create the system-on-a chip called GB10.
Formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, CES is typically the spot to launch flashy and futuristic consumer gadgets. At this year’s show, which started on Tuesday and wraps up on Friday, several companies announced AI integrations with appliances, laptops and even grills. Other major announcements included a laptop from Lenovo which has a rollable screen that can expand vertically. There were also new robots, including a Roomba competitor with a robotic arm.
Unlike Nvidia’s traditional GPUs for gaming, Project Digits isn’t targeting consumers. instead, it’s aimed at machine learning researchers, smaller companies, and universities that want to developed advanced AI but don’t have the billions of dollars to build massive data centers or buy enough cloud credits.
“There’s a gaping hole for data scientists and ML researchers and who are actively working, who are actively building something,” Huang said. “Maybe you don’t need a giant cluster. You’re just developing the early versions of the model, and you’re iterating constantly. You could do it in the cloud, but it just costs a lot more money.”
The supercomputer will cost about $3,000 when it becomes available in May, Nvidia said, and will be available from the company itself as well as some of its manufacturing partners. Huang said Project Digits is a placeholder name, indicating it may change by the time the computer goes on sale.
“If you have a good name for it, reach out to us,” Huang said.
Diversifying its business
It’s a dramatically different kind of product from the GPUs that have driven Nvidia’s historic boom in the past two years. OpenAI, which launched ChatGPT in late 2022, and other AI model creators like Anthropic have joined with large cloud providers in snapping up Nvidia’s data center GPUs because of their ability to power the most intensive models and computing workloads.
Data center sales accounted for 88% of Nvidia’s $35 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter.
Wall Street is focused on Nvidia’s ability to diversify its business so that it’s less reliant on a handful of customers buying massive AI systems.
The Nvidia Project Digits supercomputer during the 2025 CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025.
Bridget Bennett | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“It was a little scary to see Nvidia come out with something so good for so little in price,” Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote in a note this week. He said Nvidia may have “stolen the show,” due to Project Digits as well other announcements including graphics cards for gaming, new robot chips and a deal with Toyota.
Project Digits, which runs Linux and the same Nvidia software used on the company’s GPU server clusters, represents a huge increase in capabilities for researchers and universities, said David Bader, director of the Institute for Data Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Bader, who has worked on research projects with Nvidia in the past, said the computer appears to be able to handle enough data and information to train the biggest and most cutting-edge models. He told CNBC Anthropic, Google, Amazon and others “would pay $100 million to build a super computer for training” to get a system with these sorts of capabilities.
For $3,000, users can soon get a product they can plug into a standard electrical outlet in their home or office, Bader said. It’s particularly exciting for academics, who have often left for private industry in order to access bigger and more powerful computers, he said.
“Any student who is able to have one of these systems that cost roughly the same as a high-end laptop or gaming laptop, they’ll be able to do the same research and build the same models,” Bader said.
Reitzes said the computer may be Nvidia’s first move into the $50 billion market for PC and laptop chips.
“It’s not too hard to imagine it would be easy to just do it all themselves and allow the system to run Windows someday,” Reitzes wrote. “But I guess they don’t want to step on too many toes.”
Huang didn’t rule out that possibility when asked about it by Wall Street analysts on Tuesday.
He said that MediaTek may be able to sell the GB10 chip to other computer makers in the market. He made sure to leave some mystery in the air.
“Obviously, we have plans,” Huang said.
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party, arrives to speak to the media with AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla shortly after the AfD leadership confirmed Weidel as the party’s candidate for chancellor on December 07, 2024 in Berlin, Germany.
Maryam Majd | Getty Images
Elon Musk used his social network X to promote Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, hosting a live discussion Thursday with party leader Alice Weidel, a candidate for chancellor, ahead of a general election on Feb. 23.
“I’m really strongly recommending that people vote for AfD,” Musk, who is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX in addition to his role at X, said about a half hour into the conversation. “That’s my strong recommendation.”
The AfD has been classified as a “suspected extremist organization” by German domestic intelligence services. The party’s platform calls for rigid asylum laws, mass deportations, cuts to social and welfare support in Germany, and the reversal of restrictions on combustion engine vehicles.
Thierry Breton, former European Union commissioner for the internal market, said in a Jan. 4 post on X directed at Weidel: “As a European citizen concerned with the proper use of systemic platforms authorized to operate in the EU … especially to protect our democratic rules against illegal or misbehavior during election times, I believe it’s crucial to remind you” that a live discussion on X would give AfD and Weidel “a significant and valuable advantage over your competitors.”
While AfD has amassed about 20% of public support, according to reporting from broadcaster DW, the party is unlikely to form part of a coalition government, as most other parties have vowed not to work with it.
AfD previously protested the build-out of Tesla’s electric vehicle factory outside Berlin, in part because the factory would provide jobs to people who were not German citizens.
Musk’s earlier endorsements of AfD, including tweets complimenting the party and an editorial in a German newspaper, have enraged European government officials. Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, has also endorsed far-right and anti-establishment candidates and causes in the U.K.
Political leaders in France, Germany, Norway and the U.K. denounced his influence, NBC News previously reported, warning that Musk should not involve himself in their countries’ elections.
Musk, who was one of President-elect Donald Trump’s top backers in November’s election, previously promoted Trump in a live-streamed discussion on X. Before that, he hosted a conversation with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who lost to Trump in the Republican primary.
Weidel during Thursday’s talk asked Musk about what Trump might do to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to a conclusion, as the president-elect has suggested he could quickly do.
Musk demurred.
“To be clear this is up to President Trump, he is commander and chief, so it’s really up to him,” Musk said. “I don’t want to speak for him but you know I do think that there is a path to a resolution but it does require strong leadership in the United States to get this done.”
Musk also weighed in on what he thought should be done in Gaza, which has been under attack from Israel since Hamas’ deadly incursion into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“There’s no choice but to eliminate those who wish to eliminate the state of Israel, you know Hamas essentially,” Musk said. “Then, the second step is to fix the education so that Palestinians are not trained from when they are children to hate and want the death of Israel.”
“Then, the third thing, which is also very important, is to make the Palestinian areas prosperous.”
— CNBC’s Sophie Kiderlin contributed to this report.
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