Bard’s Jack Krawczyk on the birth of Google’s AI chatbot and the creative potential that lies ahead | S1E6

Jack Krawczyk, Google Bard’s Product Lead, has a founder-like obsession with pooling feedback and measuring success. Since launching in March 2023, Bard has been quickly recognized as an extraordinary tool for unlocking creativity. In this episode, Jack shares his experiences building Bard, his advice for founders, and discusses the creative opportunities to come from AI. We first got to know Jack in 2016 when he joined our team as an Entrepreneur in Residence, and later advised for an Accel company. Born in Poland, Jack’s family immigrated to the US when he was young for his father’s job as an electrical engineer. He has always been fascinated with math, computing, and the intricacies of the world's functions. These interests led Jack to carve an impressive course of product impact across a number of startups, and, eventually, Google. The Bard experiment came together around the same time as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and despite the rapid uptake of these large language models (LLMs), Jack believes the technology is still in its infancy. As a result, the Bard team has been uniquely intentional about acknowledging risk and limitations. “I describe generative AI as an idea creator. It helps take an idea in your mind, helps you find the words to describe it, and makes it approachable for people so when you do speak it into the world, it has legs.” - Jack Krawczyk On this episode of Spotlight On: AI, Jack sits down with Accel’s John Locke to discuss Google’s AI efforts, creative AI opportunities, the importance of risk mitigation, and timely advice. Conversation highlights: 00:00 - Jack’s upbringing and early interest in math and technology 04:52 - The problems that led Jack from banking to a career in technology 12:01 - How the team behind Bard came together to launch the AI assistant 16:24 - Jack’s advice for user research and measuring the success of new AI products 20:10 - Navigating the highly competitive dynamics in the AI space 21:56 - How Jack uses Bard in his everyday work and life 24:54 - Understanding the risk discrepancies between reliable AI output and input 27:03 - What startup founders can learn from Bard’s success as a “startup” within Google, and how they can apply AI effectively Host: John Locke, Partner at Accel Featuring: Jack Krawczyk, Sr. Director of Product at Google, focused on Bard Learn more: www.accel.com/spotlighton/google-bard-jack-krawczyk *Bard's episode was recorded in early November, 2023