Alphabet Inc shed $100 billion in market value on Wednesday after its new AI chatbot provided inaccurate information in a promotional video and a company event failed to surprise, increasing worries that the Google parent is falling behind rival Microsoft Corp.
Alphabet shares slid 9% during regular trading, with volumes nearly three times the 50-day moving average. They reduced losses after hours and were roughly flat. The stock had erased 40% of its value last year but soared 15% since the beginning of this year, excluding Wednesday’s losses.
Reuters was the first to point out an error in Google’s advertisement for chatbot Bard, which debuted on Monday, about which satellite first took pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system.
Google has been worried after OpenAI — a startup Microsoft is backing with around $10 billion — introduced ChatGpt software in November.
Google’s live-streamed presentation on Wednesday morning did not include details about how and when it would integrate Bard into its core search function. A day earlier, Microsoft held an event touting that it had already released to the public a version of its Bing search with ChatGPT functions integrated.
