Google Brain merges with DeepMind as Alphabet plans to take on OpenAI's ChatGPT

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is doubling down on artificial intelligence (AI) research by combining two of its most prominent units: Google Brain and DeepMind. The move comes as the company aims to compete with rival systems, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot, in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

The new division will be led by Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, and will focus on the "bold and responsible development of general AI," according to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. In a blog post on Thursday, Pichai emphasised the importance of this step in advancing the company's research capabilities and ensuring its continued leadership in the field of AI.

The teams being merged have already delivered a number of high-profile projects, including the transformer, a technology that forms the basis of some of OpenAI's own work. Moving forward, the merged teams within Alphabet will prioritize the development of "multimodal" AI, similar to OpenAI's most recent model, GPT-4. This type of AI has the ability to generate new content by responding to not only text prompts but also image inputs.

Despite Google's dominant position in the search market, with a share of over 80 per cent, Wall Street is concerned that Alphabet could fall behind Microsoft in the AI race. OpenAI, which is funded by Microsoft, provides the technology behind the updated Bing search engine.

In February, Alphabet announced the launch of Bard, its own chatbot, to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT. However, the company lost $100 billion in value after Bard shared inaccurate information in a promotional video and failed to impress at a company event.

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