Bergur Thormundsson
Research expert covering technology in the Nordics, AI and smart cities
Bard - statistics & facts
While “Bard” might sound like the next step in musical generation, it was, in fact, a competitor to ChatGPT. Bard was created by Google as its first foray into a generative artificial intelligence (AI). Bard was an experimental, conversational AI powered by Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA), an AI program designed by Google’s research and development team. As an advanced chatbot, Bard was part of a subset of AI termed deep learning. This refers to a form of AI that can take in organic data from users to further refine and improve its response. Bard’s time was not long as its twin AI project would come to take over in 2023.
Bard absorbed
In December 2023, Google released an updated version of Bard, powered by the company’s latest AI large language model, known as Gemini. This would then overtake Bard, and the two program developments were merged in early 2024, with Bard being shelved. The decision to rename the Bard project came primarily because of disappointing and embarrassing showcases of Bard, where the program made repeated and obvious mistakes in shareholder meetings and at public displays. Google announced three different versions of the new AI: Gemini Ultra is the most powerful model and is intended to compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4. According to Google, Gemini models have consistently outperformed OpenAI's offerings across various benchmark tests.AI startups spearhead development in rough seas
While Bard was not created by a startup, it is valuable to observe the change in AI companies to understand the competition. AI-focused startups witnessed considerable growth in their funding throughout the Covid-19 pandemic as companies and investors saw the need and opportunities for digital solutions and the rewards such projects might bring. These funding levels saw a decrease in 2022 as the global economy dealt with a variety of economic shocks. However, investment levels in 2023 returned to pre-pandemic growth rates as competition heated up. The current leader in startup funding in AI is OpenAI, the maker of the popular chatbot ChatGPT that became prominent in late 2022. The company ranks among the most funded machine learning startup platforms in the world, with funding of over eleven billion U.S. dollars as of January 2023.New projects new prospects
Bard's early demise and absorption by the Gemini project demonstrated Google’s reflexive habit of removing poorly performing projects before they could become money sinks. It also demonstrated that the generative AI market is a turbulent and fickle one, with the slightest flaw in early demonstration being enough to cripple the marketing of otherwise decent programs. Makers of generative AI would do well to learn from Google’s initial failures and vet their products before publication.
