Google, Bard AI chatbot has expanded its capabilities beyond web searches. It can now scan your Gmail, files, and Drive to help you find the files you need. With this new integration, you can tell Bard to perform tasks like saving and transcribing email content or showing important content in files stored in Drive.
These integrations are called extensions by Google and provide various functions. It is designed to save you from scanning through tons of emails or documents looking for specific information. You can then instruct Bard to use this information in a variety of ways, such as creating graphs or creating notes. Please note that this is currently only available in English.
Although allowing Bard to access your personal emails and data may raise privacy concerns and data usage, Google guarantees that this data will not be used to train Bard’s public model and will not be used by Human auditors. You also don’t have to integrate with Gmail, Files, and Drive. Google will first ask for your permission and you can choose to opt out at any time.
Bard product director Jack Krawczyk told The Verge that you have two options for using this feature. You can tell Bard to run the search directly in your Gmail, for example by starting the query with “@mail”. Or you can ask a simple question like “Check my email for information about my upcoming flight.”
Bard’s Expanded Capabilities
Bard goes beyond Gmail, Docs, and Drive. . Google also announced that the chatbot will join Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights. This means you can now tell Bard to pull real-time flight data, discover nearby destinations, show YouTube videos on certain topics, and more. Google will enable these three extensions by default.
Bard’s product manager, Jack Krawczyk, explained: “The reason we started this experiment… is that this is the first example of a language model participating in your profile. Krawczyk added that Google plans to expand “Google products and external partners.”
Google is rolling out several major improvements to Bard. One of the updates introduced a new way to analyze Bard’s responses via the chatbot’s “Google It” button. Previously, this button allowed users to search for topics related to Bard Answers on Google. It now also shows how similar or different Bard’s answers are to information found in Google search results.
When you click the “Google It” button for verified answers, Google will show clear search results in green and unverified answers in orange characters. You can skip the main text to get more details about what Bard does and doesn’t provide.
Additionally, Google is also rolling out a feature that allows you to continue a conversation with Bard as a connection, allowing you to share a question someone has asked in the past.
Since its launch in February, Google has been slowly adding more features to Bard. These include the ability to create code and troubleshoot problems, as well as the ability to create functions for Google Sheets. Google also recently integrated Google Lens support into Bard, allowing you to use the tool to comment on or get more information about your photos.
Conclusion
Google’s Bard AI chatbot has significantly expanded its capabilities, offering seamless integration with Gmail, files, Drive, Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights. These extensions enhance productivity and convenience, enabling users to access information and perform tasks effortlessly. Google’s commitment to privacy and ongoing improvements demonstrate Bard’s potential to become a versatile digital assistant.
