Google wants to put a little “Magi” in your lives and your searches


Tension is rising in the field of generative AI. Google is preparing to launch a new way to use its search engine, with a conversational agent like ChatGPT or Bing Chat.

A robot emoji and the Google logo // Source: Montage Frandroid

On May 10, Google I/O will take place, Google’s major annual conference, a demonstration moment for the web giant. If we expect to see the presentation of Android 14, Pixel 7a and Pixel Fold, or even the Pixel Tablet, the trend should be turned towards artificial intelligence. Since the advent of ChatGPT, it is the most fashionable sector of new technologies and the competition is beginning to scare Google and its search engine. According to New York Timesthe company is about to launch a new way to use its search engine, like ChatGPT.

Magi: the small name of Google’s conversational agent

The American newspaper writes that Google is rushing to build a whole new search engineusing AI, relying on internal documents he was able to review. All of these new features are grouped together under the code name ” Magi“. The project would obviously rely on Bard, the chatbot presented by Google last February, to counter OpenAI and Microsoft.

At Google, many engineers and executives would work in “sprint halls» to refine the last details and especially to carry out tests of this search engine. It would be more than 160 people who would work full time on Magi. Last week, some employees were reportedly invited to test this tool to judge its ability to hold conversations.

Source: Frandroid / Midjourney

All of this, Google half-acknowledges, as company spokeswoman Laura Levin was able to state, indicating that “Not every brainstorm and product idea leads to a launch, but as we’ve said before, we’re excited to bring new AI-powered features to search, and we’ll be sharing soon more details.The CEO of the company Sundar Pichai assumed a few days ago that he wanted to add AI functionalities to Google, but relativized by expressing certain reservations, saying he did not want to go too fast.

For journalist Nico Grant, this next version “would offer users a much more personalized experience than the company’s current service, trying to anticipate user needs.The newspaper goes even further: for him,modernizing its search engine has become an obsession for Google“. It would get to know what users want, offering “pre-selected option lists of items to buy, information to research“. It would be a real conversational agent, like ChatGPT or Bing Chat.

Google’s (many) little ideas for its AI search engine

It would work in synergy with Google Earth and one could search for music by chatting with it. In the ideas of products developed internally, we learn that Google is considering a tool called GIFI, which would generate images in the results of Google Images. For its part, Tivoli Tutor would make it possible to learn a language. As for Searchalong, it would be a chatbot that could open when browsing the Internet, via Chrome. We could ask himactivities near an Airbnb rental, for example, and the AI ​​would scan the page and the rest of the internet to find an answer.»

Google Bard // Source: Google

Another use imagined by Google, and which is beginning to make its way into text-generating AIs: computer programming. According to the journalist ofNew York Timesthe features developed would include answering programming questions, and Magi might even write bits of code.

At the moment, no release date is given by the newspaper, but it talks about a public availability next month, with the addition of future features in the fall, according to a document it has. could consult. Early users would be limited to one million, gradually increasing to 30 million by the end of 2023. Magi would be rolled out only in the United States at first. For now, initial public testing of Bard is underway.

Competition in the AI ​​market would scare Google

Two weeks after the launch of Bing Chat, a task force within Google’s search division was created to work on AI products, according to two people.aware of these efforts“, specifies theNew York Times. But the threats to Google around AI would tend to intensify. The newspaper also revealed that Samsung may be ditching Google in favor of Bing as the default search engine on its smartphones.

Google would assume that it would be related to Bing Chat, although at this time it is impossible to establish a causal link. It would still haveshocked Google employeesaccording to Nico Grant. About this competition, Microsoft will also hold a conference in May, also partly dedicated to AI. In addition, other search engines with AI are starting to arrive, such as You.

Microsoft ChatGPT vs Google Bard, both AIs are represented by robots // Source: Image created by Frandroid with Midjourney

Google is beginning to recognize this “AI race» which engages. For Jim Lecinski, former vice president of sales and services at Google, said that “if we’re the number one search engine and it’s a new attribute, a new function, a new feature of search engines, we want to make sure we’re in the running too“. For him, Google has been pushed to act and must now prove its expertise and show that it is also “powerful, competent and contemporarythan its competitors.

Two AIs, represented by robots, compete // Source: Image created by Frandroid with Midjourney

What scares Google is also its money, or rather its loss. Currently, the vast majority of Alphabet’s revenue comes from advertising on its search engine. Advertisements displayed in search results when using Google. The problem is that if all its users only go through Magi, Google will no longer be able to generate revenue.

To deal with this, it would seem that “Magi would keep ads in search results. Search queries likely to lead to a financial transaction […] would continue to feature advertisements in their results pages.This includes issues relating to computer code. At Microsoft, we have already started to integrate advertisements into Bing’s responses.

Google is gigantic, Google is hard to change

The risks that Google would take to launch a new search engine are great. First, because Google is a hugely publicly traded company. Last February, during the Google Bard presentation, the AI ​​made a mistake in its answers. The shareholders sanctioned the company, which lost no less than 100 billion dollars, or 9% of its market capitalization.

Google Bard’s first ad contains an error

Even though Google’s reputation is not the best (even though it is the most used search engine by far), the company wants to avoid controversy about its chatbot at all costs, if he comes out one day. Because Google is important all over the world, each change made to the search engine can have significant consequences.

A phenomenon that can however be put into perspective. Last month, Google announced a set of generative AI features for Workspace, its paid office suite, which includes Gmail, Google Docs, and more. Among other things, they allow you to rewrite text, summarize it or write emails.


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