Google has expanded access to its Bard AI chatbot, making it available in additional countries and territories, including Europe and Brazil.
The company said the latest rollout brings Bard to “most of the world” and supports the most widely spoken languages.
Google is speeding up development of Bard as it competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and numerous other chatbots entering the market. Its European launch was delayed after the EU’s leading data-protection regulator raised questions about Bard’s compliance with EU privacy rules.
In a blog post, Bard product lead Jack Krawczyk and engineering vice president Amarnag Subramanya described the update as Bard’s “biggest expansion to date,” adding support for languages such as Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, German, and Hindi.
Google also introduced several new capabilities. Bard can now read responses aloud, a function the company said works in 40 languages.
Users can choose the “tone” of Bard’s replies, including simple, long, short, professional, or casual. The feature will initially be available only in English.
Google said it has added the option to pin and return to prompts, allowing users to resume a conversation later without starting again. Users can also attach images to prompts and ask Bard to analyze them—for example, by requesting, “Write a silly caption for this picture.”
Google’s DeepMind division is developing a more advanced large-language model called Gemini, which could enhance Bard and other generative-AI products. At the same time, rivals are continuing to move quickly. Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI researchers, launched its new Claude 2 chatbot model this week.
OpenAI may need to hurry.
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