Google Reminds Employees: “Bard Is Not Search”

Jack Krawczyk, the product lead for Bard at Google, told Googlers at an all-hands meeting, saying, “I just want to be very clear: Bard is not search.” This was reported by CNBC and highlighted by Glenn Gabe on Twitter over the weekend.

This was an interesting point because when I spoke to Google’s PR team about Bard for my original coverage on Bard – Google was trying to be clear that Bard is separate from search but at the same time showed how Bard can be integrated into search.

The article from CNBC continues to quote Jack Krawczyk “It’s an experiment that’s a collaborative AI service that we talked about,” Krawczyk said. “The magic that we’re finding in using the product is really around being this creative companion to helping you be the sparkplug for imagination, explore your curiosity, etc.” But he added, “we can’t stop users from trying to use it like search.”

Internally, Google is testing Bard in search under the name “Search It.” “We’re going to be trying to get better at generating the queries associated there, as well as relaying to users our confidence,” Krawczyk said. He added that users would see a tab that says “view other drafts,” which would point people away from search-like results. “But as you want to get into more of the search-oriented journeys, we already have a product for that — it’s called search,” he said.

Sounds a bit like how the Bing Prometheus model works, a bit, right?

In Google’s original PR material shared this screenshot of how it might look in Google Search:

But Google also shared a screenshot of Bard, and again, the screenshot above is not necessarily Bard, but this was:

Here are Glenn’s tweets summarizing all of this:

Bard Product Lead: “I just want to be very clear: Bard is not Search,” -> Google execs tell employees in testy all-hands meeting that Bard A.I. isn’t just about Search

“It’s an experiment that’s a collaborative AI service that we talked about.” https://t.co/PfV9bXH0dd pic.twitter.com/a7jpiJYgiS

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) March 4, 2023

And a few more quotes. Very interesting -> Bard Product Lead: “He said Google is still catering to people who want to use it for Search, indicating that the company has built a new feature for internal use called “Search It.”

“We’re going to be trying to https://t.co/PfV9bXH0dd… https://t.co/eXmGBjY9YE pic.twitter.com/j1K2Uabz57

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) March 4, 2023

The funny thing is, when you play enough with Bing Chat, you can see how while Bing Search and Bing Chat flow pretty well together, they are very different and separate in that user experience for a reason.

I suspect the same from Google but maybe even more pronounced.

Forum discussion at Twitter.