Google parent Alphabet says AI is critical to company mission

Importance of AI business

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, a major US IT company, explained on the 2nd that it will clarify the description about part of the AI ​​(artificial intelligence) business from the financial report for January 2023.

Until now, the company has summarized the AI-related business in the “Other Bets” item, but from now on, the description method will be changed. It has been pointed out that this change suggests that Alphabet is strengthening its AI business.

Specifically, DeepMind, a subsidiary of the AI ​​division, is mentioned. Until now, DeepMind’s business was included in the “other” item, but from January 23, it will be reported as part of Alphabet’s corporate costs. DeepMind is said to be tightening its ties with Google’s services.

“AI is critical to achieving our mission of bringing breakthrough innovations to the real world,” Alphabet said in its earnings call.

A future earnings call change will reveal some of Alphabet’s investments in AI.

Competition in the AI ​​field

US tech giants such as Google are losing revenue and slowing growth. According to Alphabet’s earnings report containing the above information, net income for the fourth quarter of 2022 (October to December) fell by about 34% year-on-year. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of profit decline.

AI is one of the businesses that companies are seeking to find a way out of in the face of headwinds in management. Recently, in January, it was reported that Microsoft would make an additional investment in OpenAI, which attracted a lot of attention. OpenAI is developing an AI language model “ChatGPT”.

Relation: U.S. OpenAI announces subscription plan for conversational AI language model “ChatGPT”

In fact, last month Microsoft announced an expanded partnership with OpenAI. “Our continued collaboration extends across AI supercomputing and research, allowing us to independently commercialize the resulting advanced AI technologies.”

connection: Microsoft invests 1.3 trillion yen in OpenAI developed by “ChatGPT”

Many see the move as putting pressure on Alphabet and Google. CNBC reported on the 31st of last month that Google was testing a technology that would compete with ChatGPT. It said it had reviewed internal documents and confirmed the content with sources familiar with the plan.

Trends in the AI ​​field are currently attracting a lot of attention from crypto asset (virtual currency) investors. There is also a tendency for speculative buying to gather in AI-related tokens.

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