Google is integrating several of its consumer applications and services including Gmail, Docs, YouTube, and Maps more deeply with its artificial intelligence chatbot Bard, as the company looks to capitalise on their popularity to take on rival OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing Chat.
On September 19, Google announced Bard Extensions for English-speaking users that will enable Bard to find and show users relevant information from various Google apps within the chatbot. This includes real-time information from YouTube, Maps, and Hotels and Flights.
Users can also enable Bard to interact with their Gmail, Docs and Drive accounts to help the chatbot summarise and answer questions about their personal content.
To ensure the privacy of users' personal and sensitive content, Amar Subramanya, vice-president of engineering, Bard said that the user's private content in Gmail, Docs, and Drive is not stored by Bard or used to train the chatbot's AI model. The data is also not seen by any human reviewers or used by the company to show them ads.
"(The user) is always in control of their privacy settings, deciding how they want to use extensions, and when they want to use them. The extensions are enabled by default but one can turn them off at any time," he said. Extensions doesn't support enterprise accounts at present, he added.
Read: Google brings its generative AI search experience to India
Bard will also automatically determine the best extensions to help with the user's prompt, although people can always see which extension is being used by the chatbot, Subramanya said.
For instance, if the user is planning a trip to Maldives, they can ask Bard to pull out the dates from Gmail conversations, look up real-time flight and hotel information, see Google Maps directions to the airport, and also watch YouTube videos of things to do there in a single conversation. Prior to this launch, people were only able to export Bard's responses into Gmail and Docs.
This launch comes months after ChatGPT introduced plugins that lets users access third-party services such as Expedia, Kayak, Instacart, and Wolfram within the chatbot in March 2023.
Google had first talked about adding support for extensions in May 2023, and had said that it is working with companies such as Adobe, Kayak, Wolfram, and Khan Academy to offer third-party extensions. However, Subramanya did not share any additional information about these plans during a select media briefing.
"(Extensions) are a new frontier. So we're starting off with a small number of extensions. We want to learn from getting it out there and seeing what people do with it. As we get feedback from people, we will continue to evolve Bard and bring new capabilities to it and take it to the next level" he said.
Double checking responses
Bard will also now enable people to easily double-check their answers through the improved “Google it” feature, as a measure to tackle the problem of misinformation or inaccurate responses provided by large language AI models, also known as hallucinations.
Starting today, people can double-check the responses provided by Bard in the English language by using the "G" icon present in the right corner.
After tapping the button, the chatbot will read the response and evaluate whether there is content across the web to substantiate it. One can click on highlighted phrases in Bard's response to find out information that supports or contradicts what Bard has said, including a link to relevant content.
Apart from this, Bard will make it easier for users to build on others' conversations with Bard. Starting today, when someone shares a Bard chat through a public link, one can continue the conversation and ask additional questions to the chatbot about the topic.
Read: Generative AI helping us reimagine Search, other products: Alphabet's Sundar Pichai
Google is also expanding Bard's visual search capabilities, including the ability to upload images with Google Lens and get Google Search images in responses, along with the chatbot's ability to change the tone and style of responses to more than 40 supported languages and countries. These features were previously available only in the English language.
Bard had added support for over 40 languages including nine Indian languages in July 2023. Among the Indian languages include Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati and Urdu.
The AI chatbot, which was first unveiled by Google in February 2023, is now available in over 180 countries and territories across the world.
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