Google's AI chatbot, Bard, expands to Europe, Brazil, to take on … – Reuters.com
An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
BRUSSELS, July 13 (Reuters) – Alphabet (GOOGL.O) said it is rolling out its artificial- intelligence chatbot, Bard, in Europe and Brazil on Thursday, the product's biggest expansion since its February launch and pitting it against Microsoft (MSFT.O)-backed rival ChatGPT.
Bard and ChatGPT are human-sounding programs that use generative artificial intelligence to hold conversations with users and answer myriad prompts. The products have touched off global excitement tempered with caution.
Companies have jumped onto the AI bandwagon, investing billions with the hope of generating much more in advertising and cloud revenue. Earlier this week, billionaire Elon Musk also launched his long-teased artificial-intelligence startup xAI, whose team includes several former engineers at Google, Microsoft and OpenAI.
Google has also now added new features to Bard, which apply worldwide.
"Starting today, you can collaborate with Bard in over 40 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi and Spanish," Google senior product director Jack Krawczyk said in a blog post.
"Sometimes hearing something out loud can help you approach your idea in a different way … This is especially helpful if you want to hear the correct pronunciation of a word or listen to a poem or script."
He said users can now change the tone and style of Bard's responses to either simple, long, short, professional or casual. They can pin or rename conversations, export code to more places and use images in prompts.
Bard's launch in the EU had been held up by local privacy regulators. Krawczyk said Google had since then met the watchdogs to reassure them on issues relating to transparency, choice and control.
In a briefing with journalists, Amar Subramanya, engineering vice president of Bard, added that users could opt out of their data being collected.
Google has been hit by a fresh class action in the U.S. over the alleged misuse of users' personal information to train its artificial intelligence system.
Subramanya declined to comment on whether there were plans to develop a Bard app.
"Bard is an experiment," he added. "We want to be bold and responsible."
Nonetheless, novelty appeal may be waning, with recent Web user numbers showing that monthly traffic to ChatGPT's website and unique visitors declined for the first time ever in June.
Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels and Isabel Woodford in Mexico City Editing by Matthew Lewis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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An agenda-setting and market-moving journalist, Foo Yun Chee is a 20-year veteran at Reuters. Her stories on high profile mergers have pushed up the European telecoms index, lifted companies' shares and helped investors decide on their move. Her knowledge and experience of European antitrust laws and developments helped her broke stories on Microsoft, Google, Amazon, numerous market-moving mergers and antitrust investigations. She has previously reported on Greek politics and companies, when Greece's entry into the eurozone meant it punched above its weight on the international stage, as well as Dutch corporate giants and the quirks of Dutch society and culture that never fail to charm readers.
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Isabel is a British-Spanish journalist based in Mexico City. She joined Reuters in 2022 as part of the Latin America news hub, regularly interviewing business leaders and reporting on the region's political intrigues. Prior to joining Reuters, Isabel covered the nascent worlds of fintech and crypto at the Financial Times' sister publication, and was selected as a finalist as the 2021 Tech Journalist of the Year.
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