Google has introduced a major update to Bard, its productive AI-powered chatbot, and a competitor to ChatGPT. Bard now offers enhanced features, including the ability to double-check its responses, and greater integration with Google’s own applications and services such as Gmail, Docs, Drive, Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights, as well as hotels. Overall speed has also been improved.

Bard Sets Sail with Google Services

Bard’s access to Google services will be facilitated through Bard Extensions/Add-ons and, for now, only in English. The extensions were initially announced at Google I/O but were not immediately rolled out, as the company wanted to ensure a secure and reliable experience. It appears that the time has now come.

However, Google is still proceeding cautiously. Support for English language and access to Google services will be subject to user approval. Users can revoke Bard’s access to Gmail, Docs, Drive, or other applications at any time.

Furthermore, the company aims to ensure that users understand how their data is and isn’t being used. If personal data from Gmail, Google Drive, or Docs is utilized, it will not be used for reinforcement learning. Additionally, Google assures that emails accessed by Bard will not be seen by any human reviewer.

Bard to Serve as a Bridge

With the extensions

in place, users can request Bard to read their important emails, find specific emails, or summarize content from Google services. Through these extensions, Bard also makes Google services more compatible with each other.

For instance, if you’re planning a trip with friends, Bard can fetch the most suitable travel dates from your Gmail thread, check real-time flight and hotel information, provide directions from Maps to the airport, and even surface YouTube videos about things to do at your destination, all in a single session. In this way, Bard can act as a bridge, simplifying complex tasks for users.

The company expressed its intention to eventually support third-party services through the same Extensions model but wants to first test and learn from its first-party applications and services.

The “Google it” Button

Another new feature is the updated “Google it” button within Bard, allowing users to double-check Bard’s responses. Google claims to leverage the work of Google Research and DeepMind for this feature. When you tap the “G” icon, every sentence Bard writes is used in a Google search to verify if there’s corroborating content on the web. Once evaluated, you can click on highlighted phrases to learn more through Google Search.

Importantly, if Bard is uncertain about its response, it starts highlighting the sentence in orange. This allows users to better understand when the AI may be “hallucinating,” i.e., providing a response based on incorrect information. Hallucinations are a common issue in AI models.

The Same Chat Shared by Multiple Users

A third update allows Bard users to collaborate with one another. If someone shares a Bard chat with you via a public link, you can continue the conversation and ask additional questions on the same topic. This is a valuable feature for businesses. For example, if you’re a software developer, you can draft some code in Bard for a task, but you’re not entirely sure about the process. You can then share the chat with your colleague to work together on it.

Additionally, in all supported languages, including Turkish, users can now upload images using Google Lens, obtain Google Search images in responses, and customize Bard’s responses to be simpler, longer, shorter, more professional, or more casual.

Final Thoughts

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