While Microsoft has now retired its Bing Chat brand name for its generative AI chatbot in favor of Pilot, Google is still sticking with the Bard name for its rival chatbot, at least for now. During the past week, Google has added some new features to Bard, including a way to chat about specific content of YouTube videos,
The new feature is an update of sorts to Google"s Bard Extensions that launched back in September. Those extensions allow Bard to connect to other Google apps and services, which of course includes YouTube, so it can get information from them to use in conversations. Now this week"s update adds some more features specific to YouTube.
In the official Bard update page, It states:
We"re taking the first steps in Bard"s ability to understand YouTube videos. For example, if you’re looking for videos on how to make olive oil cake, you can now also ask how many eggs the recipe in the first video requires.
We’ve heard you want deeper engagement with YouTube videos. So we’re expanding the YouTube Extension to understand some video content so you can have a richer conversation with Bard about it.
Google also added some other new features to Bard last week. They include adding new "step-by-step explanations" to solving math equations. Another new feature from last week allows Bard to create charts, either from any data that the user types in a prompt, or from tables that Bard itself might create during a conversation.
Google also lowered the minimal required age to use Bard last week, down to 13 years old in some countries. In addition, the company revealed last week it will be taking action against two groups of cybercriminals who have used the Bard name to scam others, including making people think they need to download Bard in an effort to distribute malware.