Google just announced major updates to Google Bard, its AI assistant and ChatGPT competitors.
The biggest update is the rollout of Bard Extensions, which makes Bard capable of interacting with Google apps and services.
According to Google: “With Extensions, Bard can find and show you relevant information from the Google tools you use every day — like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights and hotels — even when the information you need is across multiple apps and services.”
It’s a step in the direction of being able to query emails and interact with apps using natural language.
“But it would appear we’re not there yet,” Marketing AI Institute CEO and founder Paul Roetzer told me on Episode 65 of The Marketing AI Show. “I haven’t seen anyone who was blown away by this.”
In fact, reporter Kevin Roose writing for The New York Times says: “The features leave a lot to be desired.”
Focusing on Bard for Gmail, Docs, and Drive, Roose says Bard succeeded at some simple tasks, but it also muddled up others.
“What I found was a bit of a mess,” Roose writes. He said he knew the product was experimental, but was still surprised that Google released an early version of Bard Extensions that is so unreliable.
However, don’t count Google out, says Roetzer. Bard Extensions will likely improve over time. And you’ll want to keep an eye out for Gemini, Google’s new language model (rumored to be multimodal) that is coming out soon.
Mike Kaput
As Chief Content Officer, Mike Kaput uses content marketing, marketing strategy, and marketing technology to grow and scale traffic, leads, and revenue for Marketing AI Institute. Mike is the co-author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing and the Future of Business (Matt Holt Books, 2022). See Mike's full bio.