Google takes first step to add plugins on Bard with own apps
On Tuesday, Google announced the latest addition to its generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Bard—adding the ability for users to link their entire suite of Google apps to the chatbot. By doing so, users will get the ability to pull information from their stored documents and spreadsheets, as well as tap public Google services such as Maps and YouTube, within Bard’s responses.
The move marks Google’s first step towards keeping pace with rival tech firm OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, in terms of the usage of plugins on the platform. However, speaking at a media roundtable, Amar Subramanya, vice-president of engineering at Google, refrained from offering a timeline on when the applicability of such plugins would be extended to third parties as well.
Plugins, which are mini versions of applications that can be integrated across different software platforms, offer a way for applications to communicate between each other. For instance, a video-conferencing application can use the plugin of a calendar app used by a user, in order to seamlessly integrate timing schedules for the latter.
On Tuesday, Google said the latest version of its Bard chatbot, which integrates its own apps as plugins, has also been upgraded to a new version of its underlying large language model (LLM), Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM 2). The first rollout of plugins will be available only in English, while Bard conversations can also be shared between users to continue collaborative conversations.
Subramanya also confirmed that the new version of Bard will now offer image-based queries and responses in over 40 languages—support for which Google had announced on 13 July. Indian languages included in this support are Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi,
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