Google ‘Live from Paris’ AI event live: all the latest on Maps, Search and more

So what exactly are we expecting to see from Google today? Clearly, Search is going to be the big theme, as we start to get more detail on exactly how Google's conversational AI is going to be baked into Search.

Any big change to Search would clearly be a huge deal, as Google has barely changed the external UI of the minimalist bar most of us type into without thinking.

But we're more likely to see baby steps today – Google has called Bard an “experimental” feature and it's only based on a “lightweight model version” of LaMDA AI tech (which is short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, if you were wondering). 

Like Microsoft's new Bing, any integration of Bard in search will likely be presented as an optional extra rather than a replacement for the classic search bar – but even that would be huge news for a search engine that has 84% market share (opens in new tab) (for now, at least).

Good morning and welcome to our Google ‘Live from Paris' liveblog.

It's another exciting day in AI-land, as Google prepares to counter-punch Microsoft's big announcements for Bing and Edge yesterday. This week's tussle reminds me of the big heavyweight tech battles of the early 2010s, when Microsoft and Google traded petty attacks over mobile and desktop software.

But this is a new era and the squared circle is now AI and machine learning. Microsoft seems to think it can steal a march on Google Search – and against all odds, it might actually do it. I'll reserve judgement until we see what Google announced today.