Facing the challenge of ChatGPT, Google enters a wartime state to reshape its corporate culture.

Google is currently facing a serious challenge from ChatGPT. Reports indicate that the management of Bard, a competing department launched by Google, has asked its employees to work at "Bard speed," which is much faster than the pace of other departments at Google. For example, legal reviews of new features can now be completed on the same day they are submitted, whereas it usually takes a quarter to complete such reviews.

As a company known for its excessive caution, Google's acceleration of the Bard project has shocked some employees while also igniting the enthusiasm of others. Google launched Bard in March this year to counter the challenge posed by OpenAI's ChatGPT. Like ChatGPT, Bard can provide users with semi-automatic programming, document summarization, blog generation, and marketing copywriting. If all the features are implemented, Bard will greatly enhance Google's voice assistant, Assistant.

The Bard team has now expanded to hundreds of people. Meanwhile, OpenAI's annual revenue has rapidly increased to $1.3 billion, putting even more pressure on Bard to accelerate its development.

However, the current situation for the Bard team is somewhat awkward: the team has been minimally involved in driving the core language model of the AI chatbot, which is mainly handled by Google DeepMind's Gemini team. Additionally, Bard was spun off from Google Cloud, which also utilizes a large language model developed by DeepMind to create generative AI features for Google's productivity application, Duet AI, similar to Microsoft's integration of OpenAI's large language model into Office 365. Although Google Search can present results related to "generative AI," Bard still does not have a role in it.

It is currently unclear how many users Bard has or whether Google will charge users of the advanced version, similar to OpenAI. However, Bard is likely to become increasingly important for Google. Currently, Google is promoting Bard as the flagship feature in several major mobile apps. Once the Bard team gains access to Gemini's development data, it is expected that Bard's functionality will be significantly enhanced, especially in terms of the various multimodal features that have generated sustained user interest in ChatGPT in recent weeks.

Behind the scenes, Google Vice President and Bard team leader Sissie Hsiao and her assistant are working hard to instill a sense of urgency in the team, which some employees refer to as "wartime" operations. This includes more urgent deadlines and sometimes requires employees to work in the evenings and on weekends. According to reports, some young employees are happy to accept this challenge as it allows them to make pioneering contributions to cutting-edge product development at Google, rather than just fixing mature businesses.

However, when it comes to employees' concerns about work-life balance, Sissie Hsiao suggests that if employees have such concerns, they should communicate with their supervisors to determine if it is appropriate for them to continue working in the Bard team. According to reports, Sissie Hsiao holds a crucial position within Google. She has previously led Google's most profitable advertising and app monetization businesses, so it is certain that she is also considering how to make Bard profitable.

Currently, there are signs that Sissie Hsiao is experimenting with a new method to accelerate product development. She is assigning employees to multiple teams, each team working on different functions of research and development simultaneously. Bard employees will be divided into approximately 30 teams, undergo regular performance assessments, and then receive feedback from Bard's senior management.

Analysts believe that despite the current shortcomings of Bard, considering the team's strong leadership capabilities and the potential support from Gemini, there is no reason to underestimate Bard's potential.