Sberbank’s Gigachat also has the ability to generate images.
Russian lender Sberbank announced on Monday that it has developed a technology named Gigachat as a rival to OpenAI’s popular artificial intelligence bot ChatGPT. Gigachat is currently available only in an invite-only testing mode, Reuters reported.
The Sberbank’s chatbot’s ability to comprehend and communicate more intelligently in the native Russian language sets it apart from its rivals, the media report added. Apart from this, Gigachat also has the ability to generate images, a feature that is currently unavailable in ChatGPT, according to a report by The Moscow Times.
The Russian chatbot will be initially made available to only a small community of testers who can sign up to participate in the testing process of Gigachat via a closed Telegram channel, The Moscow Times report added. Describing GigaChat as “a breakthrough for the larger universe of Russian technology,” Sberbank’s chief executive officer Herman Gref said, and as reported by the media organization, that the chatbot can be used by students, researchers, and more.
Sberbank, one of the largest banks in Russia, has been actively investing in the development of new technologies, including AI and machine learning, to improve its services and customer experience. The bank has launched several innovative digital products, such as its own virtual assistant, Sber, and an AI-powered personal financial management app, Sberbank Online.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since its launch in November and intensified the AI race with several big players like Google and Baidu gearing up to emulate the success of the OpenAI chatbot. Short for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, ChatGPT is an AI text generator and has been a center of attention for many due to its human-like response. OpenAI, the parent of the AI-based text generator, has a “multimillion-dollar investment” by American tech major Microsoft.
However, plagiarism and false information concerns have led to a ban on chatbot usage from several educational institutes. The AI chatbot also got temporarily banned from Italy last month and the Italian authorities said that the OpenAI’s ChatGPT lacks a sound legal framework for gathering personal information from users
