Google parent Alphabet falls sharply as Bard gives inaccurate information

Google owner Alphabet Inc fell by the most in more than three months after a demonstration of its new artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, sparked concerns that the tech giant has lost ground in the race for the future of internet search.

Google has been under pressure since developer OpenAI launched its wildly popular chatbot, ChatGPT, which many in the tech industry tout as the next generation of search.

On Tuesday, Microsoft Corp., which is investing billions in OpenAI, unveiled a new version of its Bing search engine and Edge browser incorporating technology from the AI startup.

On Wednesday, Google hosted a news conference in Paris where it shared more details about its progress integrating artificial intelligence into search.

Investors were largely underwhelmed by the demonstration. In one instance, Bard was asked about new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope.

In one of its responses, Bard said the telescope was used to take the first pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system but NASA says those were actually taken by a different telescope.

For now, Bard is available only to a limited number of trusted testers, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT has also been found to deliver inaccurate or outdated responses.

Yet investors are keenly attuned to any threat to Google’s search business, which remains its lifeblood.

Alphabet declined 7.4% to $99.67 at 1:09 p.m. New York time on Wednesday. Earlier, the shares fell as much as 8.9%, the biggest drop since Oct. 26.