Shares of Google parent Alphabet Inc. dropped more than 8% Wednesday following the official demonstration of Google’s new AI chatbot, Bard, just one day after Microsoft Corp. held its own event to demonstrate new AI technologies in its competing search engine, Bing.
Some analysts suggested the decline in Alphabet’s
GOOGL,
GOOG,
stock indicated investors had hoped for more substantive news.
Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney bluntly deemed Google’s event, which focused on new AI-powered services across key consumer products such as search and maps, “Ai Ripple, Not Yet Ai Splash” in a note Wednesday.
Bard is Google’s answer to Microsoft’s
MSFT,
ChatGPT, which got a major event on Tuesday.
But Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives cautioned that the dueling announcements are “just the first step on the AI front … as [the] AI arms race takes place among Big Tech.”
Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian looks at the competition as a years-long marathon that could shift in Google’s favor.
“Over the longer haul, we still think Google has competitive advantages in scale, engineering, cloud resources and AI capabilities, putting them in a good position to be a net beneficiary of Gen-AI,” Sebastian wrote on Wednesday.
Alphabet shares closed down nearly 8% on Wednesday, while Microsoft shares were flat. Neither moved in extended trading.
