Abu Zar Mishwani
Google announced on Tuesday that their AI, Bard, will soon be able to fact-check information and look at your personal Google data. They’re doing this to keep up with ChatGPT, which has become very popular.
Last year, when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, a chatbot supported by Microsoft, it kicked off a competition in the tech world to offer people generative AI technology. Back then, ChatGPT quickly became the most popular consumer app ever and is currently among the top 30 websites globally.
Bard hasn’t gained as much popularity as ChatGPT. In August, Bard had 183 million visits, which is only about 13 percent of what ChatGPT received, as reported by Similarweb, a website analytics company.
To catch up in the rapidly evolving AI field, Google is introducing Bard Extensions. These allow users to bring in their information from other Google services. For instance, you could ask Bard to search your files in Google Drive or give you a summary of your Gmail inbox.
At the moment, Bard users can only access data from Google apps. However, Google is collaborating with external companies to eventually integrate their applications into Bard, according to Jack Krawczyk, a senior product director at Google.
Bard is introducing a new feature to address a common issue in generative AI: inaccurate responses called “hallucinations.” With this feature, Bard users can now compare its answers to Google search results to see where they match and where they differ.
Krawczyk emphasized, “We are presenting (Bard) in a way that it admits when it’s not confident.” This approach is aimed at establishing trust with users by making Bard accountable for its responses in generative AI interactions.
There’s also a third new feature that enables users to invite others to join their conversations in Bard.