Google has “deprioritised” plans for an AI-powered chatbot mobile app called Bubble Characters, which was reportedly aimed at Gen Z users. The app was first announced in 2021, but it never made it out of beta testing.
According to a CNBC report, Google made the decision to deprioritise Bubble Characters amid an internal reorganisation. The company has stopped working on the project for now.
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According to the internal documents viewed by the news company, Bubble Characters was designed to yield a choice of talking digital character that seemed inspired from a science fiction novel and could interact with users. The app was designed to be a more personal and engaging way for Gen Z users to interact with their devices. It was powered by LLMs.
“What started out as something from a science fiction novel, became the next generation of human-level conversation,” the app’s description suggested.
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In recent months, Google has been working on various AI-powered projects that utilise large language models, and one of these projects was the Gen Z chatbot. The Assistant organisation, which focuses on developing virtual assistant applications and facilitating two-way conversations across different platforms, underwent an internal reorganisation that involved the departure of key executives. As part of this restructuring, the executives decided to prioritise the development of Bard, a competitor to ChatGPT.
To ensure the successful launch of Bard, some members of the Bubble Characters team, who were originally working on the Gen Z app, were temporarily reassigned to contribute to Bard’s development. It is also possible that Google simply felt that the app was not a good fit for its current product lineup.
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