Google Assistant will begin incorporating Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) chat service, Bard, into its responses “soon,” according to an Oct. 4 social media post from the development team.
Coming soon: #AssistantWithBard
We can’t wait to show you our vision to deliver the world’s most helpful personal assistant.
In the meantime, give Bard a try at https://t.co/5qtyBeWvge.#MadeByGoogle #Pixel pic.twitter.com/GK55yY7qSP
— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) October 4, 2023
Google Assistant is AI software used in Google Home devices such as the Nest Mini or Nest Hub. It’s also available on Android phones and tablets. Bard, on the other hand, is Google’s browser-based AI chat program that attempts to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Bard is a newer AI program, and it can do many things that Google Assistant can’t. For example, it can generate a cover letter for a resume, create computer code, write an essay, answer complex questions about history or math, and perform many other sophisticated actions based on user prompts. By contrast, Google Assistant can only give answers to very simple questions.
Related: What is Google’s Bard, and how does it work?
On the same day it made the announcement on social media, Google gave a presentation at its public event, Made by Google, describing the new upgrade. According to a report from ZDNet, Google said that Bard Assistant could access a user’s email if given permission, allowing it to sort through the user’s email account and report on its contents. It will also be able to plan a vacation for the user, write documents using Google Docs and compose SMS text messages.
The assistant will be able to accept images as input as well. For example, a user can upload an image and ask Google Bard Assistant to create a caption for it. Google did not give an exact date when it will be released but claimed that it’s currently being tested.
Google has been aggressively releasing AI improvements to compete with OpenAI and Microsoft. It released Google Bard on May 10 in select countries. On July 14, it expanded Bard access to European Union member states, despite the EU’s strict regulations on AI. Despite these accomplishments, Bard still has some kinks to work out, as Cointelegraph discovered in June that it sometimes recommends hotels that don’t exist.
