Google just announced Bard, its answer to ChatGPT. They're rolling it out to trusted testers in the US and UK this week. This is significant, not because Bard is better, but because it signals what's coming for professional services.
We're in an AI arms race. And that's good news for your firm.
What Google Announced
Bard is Google's large language model competitor to ChatGPT. It's built on LaMDA technology and is being integrated into Google Search. They're positioning it as "helpful, harmless, and honest."
The model is lighter-weight than GPT-3.5, which means it's faster and cheaper. The integration with Google's data and search infrastructure gives it real-time information (something ChatGPT lacks).
Early reviews suggest it's not better than ChatGPT yet, but it's close enough that Google has multiple models to iterate on.
Why This Matters: The Competition Effect
The best thing that could happen to this space is for multiple companies to be competing hard. Because competition drives:
- Better models. OpenAI will ship improvements faster. Google will innovate harder. Anthropic will push on safety. Everyone else will follow.
- Lower costs. When you have two competitors racing, margins compress. Prices come down. Your firm's AI toolkit becomes cheaper to operate.
- Better integrations. Microsoft is pushing to integrate AI into Office. Google will push AI into Workspace. Enterprise tools will have AI baked in.
- More specialized models. Generic models like GPT-3.5 are useful but blunt. Specialized models for legal work, healthcare, accounting — those are coming.
- Trust and safety improvements. Google is famous for being cautious. Their entry means more scrutiny on bias, hallucination, and data handling.
All of this is good for you.
The Professional Services Angle
Your firm has benefited from a year of GPT-3.5 maturity and real-world testing. By the time Bard and other models are ready for enterprise, you'll already understand the security, compliance, and workflow questions.
You've also probably identified the use cases that work. Email drafting. Research summaries. Template generation. You know where the boundaries are.
When better models come out, you'll be ready to use them well instead of scrambling to figure out what they're for.
What This Means for Tool Selection
Your instinct right now might be to wait and see. See if Bard is better. See if something else comes along. See who wins the "arms race."
That's a mistake.
You shouldn't be selecting an AI tool to use forever. You should be identifying problems to solve with AI. Then you use whatever tool solves the problem well today.
As better tools emerge, you switch. It's like email providers. You didn't wait for the "best" email provider to be determined. You picked one that worked, and if something better came along, you migrated.
Same approach with AI.
The Real Opportunity
The next 12 months are going to be fast. New models. New capabilities. New integrations. New competitors.
Firms that wait for this to settle down will be three years behind firms that start learning now. Even if they're using tools that will be obsolete, they're learning the questions that matter: How do we maintain data security? How do we measure ROI? How do our team's jobs change?
Those questions don't change when the model changes. The answers do.
What You Should Do Now
Keep experimenting with what you have. Don't wait for Bard to hit general release. Don't wait for the "perfect" tool.
Use what's available to solve real problems. Learn. Measure. Document what works. When Bard or the next thing comes out, you'll be ready to evaluate it intelligently.
The arms race is good. It means the tools will get better, faster, and cheaper. You should be riding that wave, not waiting for it to settle.