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Market interest in AI technology remained high this week, with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) grabbing a lot of attention and getting a mixed bag of reactions to the company detailing its new artificial intelligence and search initiatives.
On Thursday, Google ( GOOG ) tried to go all out for its AI initiatives with the company’s event in Paris. A highlight of Google’s ( GOOG ) gathering was the unveiling of a “multisearch” feature that lets people use text or images to search on their mobile devices. Google ( GOOG ) also demonstrated updates and improvements to its iOS Translate app and Google Maps feature. The company’s Multisearch feature is powered by Google’s ( GOOG ) Multitask Unified Model AI technology, also known as MUM.
However, for all of Google’s ( GOOG ) AI plans, Wall Street wasn’t on board.
On Wednesday, Google’s ( GOOG ) parent company, Alphabet, saw shares drop as much as 8% as several industry analysts said the company was losing the AI public relations battle to Microsoft.
That was when Google (GOOG) launched Bard, its AI chatbot designed to compete with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and his new multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI developed by ChatGPT. Microsoft ( MSFT ) recently dove into the AI game in a big way, saying it will include ChatGPT in its Azure cloud offering, and AI with its Bing search engine.
Analyst Colin Sebastian of Baird said Google ( GOOG ) has “much more to lose than to gain” if it brings its AI products to market too soon. Sebastian also said Microsoft ( MSFT ) is “winning” the early AI game.
But as the week progressed, the movement of all the new AI endeavors showed that who is in the technological driver’s seat will likely remain a matter of personal opinion.
For example, Microsoft ( MSFT ) got a boost as analysts praised its artificial intelligence-powered Bing search engine and Edge web browser. Wells Fargo analyst Michael Turin said Microsoft’s ( MSFT ) AI is “significantly improving” the quality and relevance of search queries.
Meanwhile, while Alphabet ( GOOG ) took a hit this week, the company still received such positive views from industry analysts, with Morgan Stanley’s Brian Nowak saying, “The AI race is on.”
Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) weren’t the only ones on the front lines of the AI battle this week.
Chip companies such as Nvidia ( NVDA ), Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ) and Applied Materials ( AMAT ) got a boost, largely on expectations that all the new attention and investment in AI could lead to a boom in business for the semiconductor sector.
Skyworks Solutions ( SWKS ) also got a boost for its role in the market for chips used in satellite communications, with the company launching a $2 billion share buyback.
C3.ai (NYSE: AI), which actually has “AI” in its name, was among the smaller AI companies whose shares performed strongly during the week. Other AI-related stocks that benefited from the growing interest in AI were SoundHound AI ( SOUN ) and BigBear.ai ( BBAI ).
And by the end of the week, Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth said that the AI efforts of Facebook parent Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) should benefit from its “most valuable asset”, its huge user base.