What is Bard, Google's answer to 'ChatGPT': A closer look at the announcement, timing

In a blog post, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai also spoke about how AI-based features would be coming to Google Search as well. It should be noted that so far LaMDA was available in limited testing to select users of the company's AI Test Kitchen app. So what is Bard and why has Google suddenly taken the decision to announce this new technology? Let's take a deeper look at the reasons and timings of this announcement. Bard is based on LaMDA and Google's own conversational AI chatbot.