Google is about to step up with its Bard AI chatbot with several new features and changes, including the ability to generate images, new features for coding, and app integration. In addition, the company is expanding the chatbot access to every supported region, and it’s making Bard available to everyone ending the signup waitlist process.
On May 10, at the Google IO 2023, the company announced a slew of updates for many of its products, but the primary focus was AI. In addition to bringing new AI capabilities to search results and across many other products, such as Gmail and Docs, the company also unveiled various significant updates for its Bard AI chatbot.
Google Bard support expansion
For example, the search giant once again confirmed that Bard is now using the PaLM 2 model, which is the latest and more robust large-scale language model that unlocks more features to improve reasoning, coding, math, and the ability to resolve more advanced problems.
Also, Google announced that it is ending the waitlist and making Bard available to everyone in over 180 countries, and more regions are “coming soon.” Furthermore, the chatbot is now available in Japanese and Korean, and support for more languages is also coming soon.
Image support Initially, Bard was limited to text-based answers, but in this update, the chatbot will be able to show responses with rich visuals with images alongside the text response.
According to the company, it’s integrating Google Lens into Bard, which allows you to upload a photo and ask the chatbot to provide information or create content based on the image.
Coding skill improvementsAs part of the AI coding skills, the AI chatbot will improve source citations, add dark theme support, and integrate a new button to export content.
In the announcement, the company says it’s making citations more precise. If the chatbot brings in a block of code or cites other content, you will be able to click the annotation, and the chatbot will underline those parts of the response and link to the source.
Also, Google Bard now includes dark theme support. You can enable the feature manually or set it to change the color scheme depending on the system color settings.
Furthermore, the company is adding the ability to export and run code with “Replit,” starting with Python. In addition, you will now be able to export responses into Gmail and Docs.
While some of the features mentioned above will be available in the coming weeks and others soon, the company also shared some details of the future of Bard.
Google Bard futureFor instance, in the near future, Google plans to further integrate its apps and services, such as Docs, Drive, Gmail, Maps, and others, into the AI chatbot experience. It also plans to bring extensions (similar to Bing Chat) to allow third-party services to integrate with Bard.
One of these integrations is the partnership with Adobe Firefly to create high-quality images, which you will able to continue editing with Adobe Express.
Other partners that Google is working with include Kayak, OpenTable, ZipRecruiter, Instacart, Wolfram, and Khan Academy.
According to the company, it’s integrating Google Lens into Bard, which allows you to upload a photo and ask the chatbot to provide information or create content based on the image.
Coding skill improvements
In the announcement, the company says it’s making citations more precise. If the chatbot brings in a block of code or cites other content, you will be able to click the annotation, and the chatbot will underline those parts of the response and link to the source.
