As ChatGPT takes the internet by storm, here’s what its rivals are up to

OpenAI was founded in 2015 by a small group of entrepreneurs and AI researchers, including Sam Altman, former president of Y Combinator; Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of electric carmaker Tesla; and Ilya Sutskever, a former Google expert on machine learning.

Musk served on OpenAI’s board until 2018, but left after that to focus on Tesla.

OpenAI took the internet by storm in November last year as ChatGPT wowed people with its ability to formulate detailed and human-like answers on a wide range of subjects in a few seconds.

Following the response, Microsoft said earlier this month that it reportedly injected 10 billion into the company, after having earlier invested in 2019 and 2021.

Without disclosing the specific financial terms of the deal, Microsoft said it is a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs”.

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In an interview with ET earlier this month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company is looking to integrate ChatGPT with its search engine Bing. “We look forward to sort of seeing what’s possible in every domain, including Bing,” he said.ETtech takes a look at what ChatGPT’s rivals are doing to grab a share of the AI pie:

Google: The chatter around the disruptive chatbot has made the search engine giant declare “Code Red” meaning pulling the fire alarm.

Top executives have sounded caution that Google’s search business – which has served as the primary search engine for over 20 years now – could be in line to face a serious threat from the chatbot.

The tech major has already built a chatbot to rival ChatGPT and it may be released this year.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has been involved in a series of meetings to define Google’s AI strategy and has upended the work of numerous groups inside the company to respond to the threat that ChatGPT poses, The New York Times reported, citing a memo and audio recording.

Google even rang up its founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to chalk out a plan. Page and Brin held several meetings with company executives and reviewed Google’s AI product strategy.

Baidu: Chinese internet search major Baidu plans to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot service similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT in March, reported Bloomberg.

Baidu has spent billions researching AI to transition from online marketing to deeper technology The tech firm plans to launch the service as a standalone application and then gradually merge it into its search engine, the report said.

Baidu plans to incorporate chatbot-generated results when users make search requests instead of only links.

Anthropic: The San Francisco-based AI startup is in talks to raise roughly $300 million in funding, which could value Anthropic at roughly $5 billion.

Founded in 2021 by a group of people that included several researchers who left OpenAI, the startup previously raised $704 million, valuing it at $4 billion, according to PitchBook, which tracks private investment data.

Character.AI: Fresh fundraise is also on the cards for Character.AI, which lets people talk to chatbots that impersonate celebrities. The startup has held discussions about a large round of funding, The New York Times reported.

Replika & You.com: Both chatbot companies are rolling out similar technology into a new kind of search engine and have claimed to have received unsolicited interest from investors.