Google and Microsoft are adding AI search engines to their websites. This is how it will transform the internet

Google and Microsoft claim that artificial intelligence technology will transform search engines into chatbots.

Google Search already uses machine-learning to find results. Today, the company announced that it will integrate "an experimental conversational AI system" called Bard. This service will be made public in the coming weeks.

"Bard can be a creative outlet and a launchpad for curiosity. It will help you explain new discoveries from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, or learn about the best strikers currently playing football, and then drills to improve your skills."

"Soon you'll see AI powered features in Search that distill complex information into simple-to-digest formats so you can quickly grasp the big picture and learn from the web.

The company will explain how its $US10 million ($14.5 billion), investment in OpenAI will enable it to integrate ChatGPT, the popular chatbot from San Francisco, into Microsoft's Bing search engine. Google remains the dominant search engine.

According to unverified leaks, the AI-powered Bing version shows a new "chat" option in its menu bar. It can ask and answer questions in conversation while citing its sources.

Toby Walsh, chief scientist at the AI Institute at The University of New South Wales, said that Bing's integration of ChatGPT technology presents a "real, potentially existential threat to a company such as Google".

Experts are unsure if internet users will click on search engine links if they can get instant and conversational answers for our most intimate and complex questions.

This shift means that search engines will try harder to understand how we use language -- while still collecting data to make money -- rather than just trying to find profitable or accurate search results.

"The ones that are just beginning to appear will be even more seductive to us. We're going have long-running conversations. They'll remember the context of our conversations and things about us.

"The ultimate challenge is engineering -- how can you scale this so that it reaches millions of people with a millisecond response?"Professor Walsh asks."In some ways, that is as important as the quality of your result.