Parmy Olson, Columnist

Google Will Join the AI Wars, Pitting LaMDA Against ChatGPT

Amid lackluster results, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is jumping into the fight

February 3, 2023 at 1:49 PM UTC

Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of “Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World.”

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Of the world’s large tech firms, Alphabet Inc. may be caught most deeply in the innovator’s dilemma. The classic theory from Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen says large companies struggle to innovate because they fear hurting an established business. Alphabet has been in that bind for the last few months, coming under tremendous pressure to respond to ChatGPT, the OpenAI tool that could reinvent internet searching with its remarkable conversational answers to any question. But Google has to be cautious: its $150 billion search business makes money every time we click on ads and links; single, synthesized answers to queries could draw those clicks away.

Now Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has decided he has little choice but to take that risk.