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Google He was working on an AI-powered mobile chatbot app for Gen Z users that features interactive digital personas, CNBC has learned.
However, the company recently “deprioritized” those efforts amid an internal reorganization, according to materials seen by CNBC. Usually, when a product is deprioritized at Google, work on it stops.
Dubbed “Bubble Characters,” the app featured a selection of a speaking digital character that would interact in conversations with Gen Z users, according to internal documents seen by CNBC. The company has been working on it since the fourth quarter of 2021. Google declined to comment to CNBC.
The app’s description states that it contains “humanoid” conversations that are “action-taking” and “interesting for GenZ.” The conversations were powered by large language models, which are huge data sets that are used to understand and generate human-like text.
“What started as something out of a sci-fi novel has become the next generation of human-level conversations,” the app’s description read.
In one example seen by CNBC, a friendly voice of a cartoon-like character engaged in a conversation, asking follow-up questions and even offering relationship advice.
The Gen Z chatbot was just one among a handful of AI projects using Google’s large language models in the past several months. Within the Assistant organization, which works on virtual assistant applications or two-way conversations for a variety of platforms, executives prioritized ChatGPT competitor Bard amid an internal reorganization that included the departure of a few key executives. Some members of the Bubble Characters team were asked to pause their work on the Gen Z app to work on Bard before its launch, according to correspondence seen by CNBC.
Meanwhile, some of Google’s top AI researchers have left the company to start their own chatbot companies, attracting investment in a sluggish funding environment. Character.AI, a two-year-old company building an AI companion chatbot led by former Google researchers Noam Shazier and Daniel de Freitas, raised $150 million led by Andreessen Horowitz in February.
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