Google shelves its plans for a gen z AI chatbot
Google has reportedly shelved its interactive AI chatbot project for gen z called Bubble Characters. The company recently put its efforts to the side in regard to a particular project due to an internal reorganisation.
The chatbot was in development since late 2021, and was designed to have "human-like" conversations with users that “take action” and are “interesting for GenZ.” The conversations were powered by large language models, which are massive data sets used to understand and generate human-like text.
“What started out as something from a science fiction novel, became the next generation of human-level conversation,” the app’s description read.
The Gen Z chatbot was among a range of AI-powered projects using Google’s large language models in the last several months. Within the Assistant organization, which works on virtual assistant applications or two-way conversations for a variety of platforms, executives have prioritized ChatGPT-competitor Bard amid an internal reorganization that included the departure of a few key executives.
Some of the Bubble Characters team members were asked to put a pause on their work on the Gen Z app to work on Bard ahead of its launch, according to reports.
On the other hand, some of Google’s top AI researchers have left the company to start their own chatbot companies, drawing investments in an otherwise slow funding environment. Character.AI, a 2-year-old company building a companion AI chatbot led by former Google researchers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, raised $150 million led by Andreessen Horowitz in March.
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