Google launching its own artificial intelligence bot, known as Bard

Google is launching its own artificial intelligence bot known as Bard, a direct competitor to ChatGPT.

In a blog post Monday, the California-based company says it will soon give a select number of "trusted testers" access to the artificial intelligence prototype it has been working on in some form for the last six years.

The company says it plans to make the service "more widely available to the public in the coming weeks."

The news comes on the heels of the launch of ChatGPT, the world's first mainstream artificial intelligence tool that has earned a slew of praise and criticism in its first few weeks of existence. 

Similar to ChatGPT, Bard will give users nuanced answers to complex or open-ended queries.

The technology behind the chatbot itself is known as LaMDA, a conversation and language simulator reportedly so advanced that one former engineer of the company made headlines last year by describing it as "sentient".

Google says even users who don't use the chatbot directly can expect to see its impact on the company's core search tool soon, giving it the ability to "distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more."