Microsoft and Google recently engaged in their first fight in their struggle for dominance in the rapidly expanding field of generative artificial intelligence applications. In the first titanic battle, Alphabet-owned Google (GOOGLE) promised a new AI-based chatbot named Bard while Microsoft (MSFT) introduced a new version of its Bing search engine driven by software from the OpenAI startup, the maker of ChatGPT. 

The Bing chatbot won the first round, but Google hasn't yet made Bard accessible to the general public because of some well-known issues that forced the company to restrict its capacity to engage in chats about touchy subjects. As a result of worries that Bing would overtake Google in the market for search-related advertising, Alphabet's shares fell.

According to a blog post written by Google Workspace Vice President Johanna Voolich Wright, the company has started giving "trusted testers" access to AI-powered writing functions in Gmail and Docs. (The business used the same words when announcing the Bard a few weeks ago.) Before making these new capabilities available to the general public, Google said it will start rolling them out to test users over the course of the year.

The new features, according to the business, will let users brainstorm, proofread, write, and rewrite in Docs as well as draft, reply, summarize, and prioritize emails in Gmail. It also has plans to provide other apps including Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Chat AI functionality.

In the blog post's example, the user requests that Google Docs generate a job posting for a regional sales representative. Google Docs essentially creates the post from scratch, which the user can then edit as necessary. Another illustration is AI-drafted notes in Gmail that have a range of tones, from formal to lighthearted.

Tuesday's debut of GPT-4, OpenAI's new generation of iterative AI software, eclipsed Google's understated statement. The new software can now handle both image and text inputs, and in many cases, it offers better replies. OpenAI reported that GPT-3.5 scored in the bottom 10% while the new program passed a simulated bar exam with a score in the top 10% of test takers. The business claimed that GPT-4 is "more creative, more reliable, and able to handle much more nuanced instructions than GPT-3.5." 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will give a virtual event on Thursday called "the future of work with AI," and there's a potential that Microsoft could once more out-PR Google, as they did with the recent announcements on AI-powered search and chatbots. Jared Spataro, the organization's corporate VP of "modern work and business applications," is a co-host of the event. 

Even though the information is still hazy, it appears likely that the company will demonstrate the integration of generative AI capabilities in Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as well as perhaps in Microsoft Teams, its communications platform, and Outlook, its well-known email client.

Microsoft Dynamics, the company's premier enterprise software, now has additional AI features that were previously unveiled earlier this month. Customers will be able to use AI capabilities for tasks including responding to customer emails and service requests and creating targeted marketing messages, according to the company's "Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot" product.