In a surprising turn of events, Google, one of the leaders in the AI race, is cautioning employees about using chatbots. This includes the company’s self-developed Bard. Meanwhile, the company has been going around the world promoting the chatbot.

According to individuals familiar with the matter and confirmed by the company, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has instructed its employees not to input sensitive company documents into AI chatbots. This directive aligns with the company’s long standing policy of ensuring the protection of confidential information.

Moreover, the company has also advised its engineers to not use code directly generated from these AI softwares, and wants to be more transparent with the limitations of the technology.

Google’s caution against its own chatbot raises several concerns about the privacy and security aspects of these large language models. Google was earlier promoting the use of Bard for its employees. Google’s updated privacy note also tells users to not include confidential and sensitive information in Bard conversations.

This comes after a lot of companies telling their employees to not use chatbots in their work. 

Samsung banned the use of ChatGPT for its employees citing the same reasons as Google. Apple had restricted its employees from using ChatGPT at work and sharing confidential information. Amazon had also issued similar guidelines for its employees. 

On the other hand, Microsoft’s leaked document read that the company is fine with its employees using ChatGPT as long as they do not share internal information and sensitive data with the model.