Shares of Alphabet (GOOG 5.34%) (GOOGL 5.32%) were moving higher after the tech giant got a round of applause for the release of Gemini, its latest and most capable artificial intelligence (AI) model. The market response was a notable contrast from its first AI chatbot Bard, which it released in February and was initially poorly received.
Alphabet stock was up 5.5% as of 3:02 p.m. ET on the news.
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Alphabet strengthens its AI position
The stakes are high in AI. Most tech CEOs believe that generative AI will be the next transformative technology and the spoils will go to the winner or winners in the industry.
Thus far, OpenAI has been perceived as the leader in AI, along with its partner Microsoft, but Alphabet took a significant step toward challenging that assumption with the release of Gemini. According to Alphabet, Gemini Ultra outperforms GPT-4 in tasks such as general knowledge, reasoning, math, and coding.
The Google parent also said that Gemini is the first model to outperform human experts on Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU), a popular way of testing the capabilities of AI models. Gemini 1.0 is now rolling out across a range of products and platforms. The company expects it to be available in more of its products in the coming months, such as seek and Chrome.
Is Gemini a game changer?
It’s too soon to say whether Gemini is a game changer for Alphabet. AI technology is still rapidly developing, and OpenAI or another AI company could soon release something better.
However, it’s clearly reassuring to investors that Alphabet isn’t sitting still in the AI race and is likely to remain a leader. We’ll have to foresee and see how the adoption of Gemini progresses, but it’s a mistake to think that Alphabet will easily be disrupted by new AI technologies or challengers admire OpenAI.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Jeremy Bowman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
