Google launches its Bard chatbot in Europe with a heap of new features as the AI arms race heats up
Google expands Bard AI chatbot to new regions
Global rollout now reaches most countries
Google has rolled out its Bard AI chatbot to a broader range of countries, including Europe and Brazil, according to the company’s latest update. The new expansion now covers the majority of the world and offers support for the most widely used languages.
Facing regulatory hurdles
While Google accelerates Bard’s development to keep pace with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and a surge of emerging chatbots, it had to postpone the rollout in Europe after the EU’s top data watchdog flagged concerns about Bard’s compliance with EU data‑protection rules.
Major language expansion
In a blog post, Bard’s product lead Jack Krawczyk and engineering vice president Amarnag Subramanya announced the update as the biggest expansion to date. The new release now supports Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, German, and Hindi.
New capabilities
- Bard can now speak its responses, a feature that is available in 40 languages.
- Users can select the tone of Bard’s answers—simple, long, short, professional, or casual—initially only in English.
- The chatbot now lets users pin and revisit prompts, allowing conversations to continue later without starting over.
- Images can be uploaded alongside a prompt, and Bard will analyze the picture. For example, you could ask Bard, “Write a silly caption for this picture.”
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Google’s DeepMind Unveils Gemini, A Bold Leap Beyond Bard
A fresh wave of generative AI surges from Google’s DeepMind, promising a more sophisticated large‑language model called Gemini. A new Gemini Gemini model could bring unprecedented power to the Bard chatbot as well as an entire ecosystem of AI products.
Tech Titans Keep the Pace
- Anthropic – Founded by former OpenAI researchers – rolls out its latest chatbot called Claude 2, showing no signs of slowing down.
- OpenAI – Could sharpen its craft, prompted by Gemini’s bold stride.
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