Google has announced its plan to reintroduce its AI image generation tool in the coming weeks after temporarily halting it due to inaccuracies in historical depictions. The Gemini AI models, introduced by Alphabet's Google earlier this month, faced criticism on social media for generating historically inaccurate images. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis revealed that the tool was taken offline to address issues and is expected to return online in the next few weeks. The company acknowledged that the tool needed to be fixed as intended. The announcement led to a 3.5% decline in Alphabet's shares on Monday afternoon, impacting the S&P 500 index.

Why does it matter?

Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022, Google has been in a race to develop AI software to compete with the capabilities of the Microsoft-backed company. The generative AI chatbot, initially named Bard and released by Google a year ago, faced criticism for sharing inaccurate information in a promotional video about a planet outside the Earth's solar system. The dissemination of erroneous information caused a drop of 9% in the company's shares. The chatbot was later rebranded as Gemini earlier this month, accompanied by the introduction of paid subscription plans, allowing users to access improved reasoning capabilities from the AI model. Despite being in the early stages of generative AI development, Bob O'Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, suggests persistent glitches or inaccuracies may raise user concerns.