Google announced its Bard AI earlier this year to some fanfare, but the number of people who could give it a try were quite limited. This was expanded into an open beta phase for the US and UK back in March. But now, following the announcement at the company’s I/O event, it is now available to anyone who wants to give it a try.
The internet search giant is starting the rollout of its Bard AI by first making it available in English in 180 countries, as well as adding Japanese and Korean. Naturally, more languages will be added gradually, with the company saying there will be 40 new languages. Google also says that it’s now making Bard run on the PaLM 2 language model, which the company says is more capable and includes “advanced math and reasoning skills” as well as coding capabilities.
Beyond these, Google also says that it is giving Bard a visual upgrade, as in allowing prompts to include images, as well as adding them to responses. This is thanks to Google Lens, as well as Adobe Firefly, getting roped into the process.
On the smaller scale of things, Google is also making it easier to export Bard responses to Google Docs and Gmail. Which brings us to what the company calls Duet AI, which is a range of generative AI toos for Gmail, Docs, Slides and more. This includes a feature that helps you write your text documents or emails, be it from scratch or just refining what’s already there, as well as generating images as necessary.
All that being said, Duet is seemingly one step behind Bard, in that it was just moved to its open waitlist phase from its previous private waitlist. So while it’s not open to the public, you can sign up for it, though there’s no indication when exactly you’ll be let in.
If you’re thinking the bits on Google Bard sound pretty familiar, it’s because Microsoft announced something similar for its Bing AI last week. But either way, if you wish to give Bard a go, this is the link to hit. And this is the one to sign up for the Duet waitlist instead.
