** Shares of Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O up 0.6% at $105.1 premarket
** Google CEO Sundar Pichai says co plans to add conversational artificial intelligence (AI)
features to its search engine, the WSJ reports urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nFWN369234
** Pichai says advances in AI would greatly improve Google's ability to answer search
queries, the WSJ report adds
** In March, Microsoft Corp-backed OpenAI started the release of a powerful AI model known
as GPT-4, which also helps power MSFT's Bing search engine urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N35M1TF
** As of last close, GOOGL up 18.4% YTD
(Reporting by Vansh Agarwal in Bengaluru)
((Vansh.Agarwal@thomsonreuters.com;))