Google Employees Criticise CEO Pichai Over 'Rushed' Announcement Of ChatGPT-Rival Bard

"Rushing Bard to market in a panic validated the market's fear about us," a Google employee reportedly said.

Google's botched Bard launch led to loss of billions for parent firm Alphabet.

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Google employees have reportedly criticised the company's leadership, particularly, CEO Sundar Pichai, for how it handled the announcement of its ChatGPT competitor Bard this week, calling the announcement "rushed", and "botched". Employees criticised the Bard announcement on the popular internal forum Memegen, calling it "rushed," "botched," and "un-Googley," reports CNBC.

"Dear Sundar, the Bard launch and the layoffs were rushed, botched, and myopic. Please return to taking a long-term outlook," read one meme that included a serious picture of Pichai.

The post received many upvotes from employees, said the report.

Another meme reads: "Rushing Bard to market in a panic validated the market's fear about us".

Moreover, on Twitter, people began pointing out that an ad for Bard offered an incorrect description of a telescope used to take the first pictures of a planet outside our solar system, the report mentioned.

"Unfortunately a simple google search would tell us that JWST actually did not "take the very first picture of a planet outside of our own solar system" and this is literally in the ad for Bard so I wouldn't trust it yet," a user tweeted.

Alphabet shares nosedived last week as the Google-parent lost $100 billion in market value last week after its new chatbot, Bard, showed inaccurate information in a promotional video. 

The AI-powered tool failed to impress at the event triggering worries that the Google parent is losing ground to its rival Microsoft. Alphabet shares fell 8 per cent or $8.59 per share to $99.05 and remained one of the most actively traded on US exchanges, reported news agency Reuters.

Analysts raise concerns saying its AI search event lacked details on how it will answer Microsoft's ChatGPT challenge. 

The tech company shared a short GIF video of Bard in action through Twitter describing the chatbot as a "launchpad for curiosity" saying it would help simplify complex topics. However, it ended up showing an inaccurate answer that came to notice just hours before the launch event for Bard in Paris.

Google-competitor Microsoft last week introduced its new Bing-powered "next-generation" ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) and also updated its Edge browser with new AI capabilities.

(With inputs from IANS)