Google takes aim at ChatGPT, Meta with flurry of AI products and upgrades

Alphabet’s Google said Tuesday it would put artificial intelligence into the hands of more Web surfers while teasing a $249.99-a-month subscription for its AI power users, its latest effort to fend off growing competition from startups like OpenAI.Google unveiled the plans at its annual I/O conference in Mountain View, Calif., which has adopted a tone of increased urgency since the rise of generative AI challenged the tech company’s longtime stronghold of organizing and retrieving information on the internet.In recent months, Google has become more aggressive in asserting it has caught up to competitors after appearing flat-footed upon the release of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT.Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said at the conference: “Over and over, we’ve been able to deliver the best models at the most effective price point.”Its AI assistant Gemini app now has more than 400 million monthly active users, Pichai said.In a major update, the company said consumers across the United States now can switch Google Search into “AI Mode.” Showcased in March as an experiment open to test users, the feature dispenses with the Web’s standard fare in favor of computer-generated answers for complicated queries.Google also announced an “AI Ultra Plan,” which for $249.99 monthly provides users with higher limits on AI and early access to experimental tools like Project Mariner, an internet browser extension that can automate keystrokes and mouse clicks, and Deep Think, a version of its top-shelf Gemini model that is more capable of reasoning through complex tasks.The price is comparable to $200 monthly plans from AI model developers OpenAI and Anthropic, underscoring how companies are exploring ways to pay for the exorbitant costs of AI development. Google’s new plan also includes 30 terabytes of cloud storage and an ad-free YouTube subscription.Google already offers other subscription options, including a $19.99-per-month service with acce...