ChatGPT rival Bard and looming event from OpenAI backer Microsoft swing Alphabet stock as artificial intelligence race heats up

• Shares of Google parent Alphabet were volatile Monday as the artificial intelligence race heats up.
• CEO Sundar Pichai announced the launch of AI chatbot "Bard" on the company's blog.

Shares of Google parent Alphabet were volatile Monday as the artificial intelligence race heats up amid the rise of ChatGPT.

The swings began when Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a blog post that its own chatbot dubbed "Bard" will be open to early testers and become available to the public in a few weeks.

"Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world's knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models," Pichai wrote.

Bard is powered by Google's Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA, which Pichai said will require less computing power and will make the service more broadly available to more users.

Alphabet stock immediately came off lows to pare intraday losses sharply, nearing $104 and appearing to head toward positive territory.

But minutes later, Microsoft, which is an investor in ChatGPT parent OpenAI, teased further details of an event on Tuesday.

While invitations to an in-person event at its headquarters went out last week, the company made an official announcement Monday. It will start at 1 p.m. ET and is expected to cover ChatGPT, with CEO Satya Nadella vowing to "share some progress on a few exciting projects."

Shares of Alphabet suddenly headed lower again and gave up most of the gains from its Bard announcement. They are currently down 2% at $102.83.

The excitement over the success and popularity of ChatGPT has spurred interest over a swathe of artificial intelligence stocks in recent weeks.

For its part, ChatGPT has shown a capacity for a range of tasks, such as writing stock stories, layoff emails, and even dating-app messages.

The rapid success was reportedly viewed with concern in some sectors of Alphabet as a potential threat to its search business.

"Soon, you'll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web: whether that's seeking out additional perspectives, like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar, or going deeper on a related topic, like steps to get started as a beginner," wrote Pichai.