What happened
Shares of C3.ai (AI 3.02%), the artificial intelligence-based software-as-a-service company, were moving higher again as the stakes continued to build in artificial intelligence and investors continue to look to C3.ai as one of the few pure plays available in AI.
There was no company-specific news out on the stock, but an announcement from Alphabet may have given it another boost. As of 2:45 p.m. ET, the stock was up 3% after surging as much as 19.5% earlier in the session.
So what
Coming on the heels of news that ChatGPT's has reached 100 million users and it would charge $20 a month for a "plus" tier, Google said today that it was launching its own conversational search tool, named Bard.
Bard isn't live, but Google said it will be made available in the coming weeks and is now being opened up to "trusted testers."
The move by Google, coming just two months after OpenAI launched ChatGPT, shows how quickly generative AI is progressing, and it also led C3.ai to introduce its own generative AI product suite with its first product as enterprise search, allowing companies to use chat-like functionality to search across all data systems in the company.
Google also name-checked C3.ai in its announcement, saying it was one of several partnerships using Google Cloud for scalability. C3.ai was also named Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year in 2021, and it has a wide range of products available on Google Cloud.
Now what
C3.ai stock is now up more than 140% this year as interest in AI stocks has rapidly accelerated. Though much of those gains seem speculative, the company is in a unique position, given its singular focus on artificial intelligence. It could take time for moves like the new generative AI product suite to pay off, but the market for these products could be enormous.
At a market cap of just $3 billion, C3.ai has a lot of upside potential if it can harness the coming AI boom.
