New Google Bard extensions connect Gmail, Docs, Maps and other services

Google is expanding the scope of its Bard AI tool by integrating it directly with many services and applications offered by Google. Announced on Tuesday, a new feature known as Bard extensions can be linked to Gmail, Docs, Google Drive, Google Maps, YouTube and even Google Flights and Hotels. The idea is to use Bard as a one-stop shop to obtain information through these different services.

Using the Bard extensions, you can ask questions and submit requests related to any of Google’s applications.

For example, if you are planning a trip to Tokyo with other family members and would like to get help from Bard, you can ask the tool to search for information on the Google website. You can ask the tool to search for dates that suit everyone based on Gmail messages, search for flight and hotel information, find Google Maps directions to the airport and check YouTube videos about Tokyo. And you can do all this with a single conversation on Google Bard.

How to try Google Bard extensions?

Another example: you are looking for a new job and you need Bard’s help to find a specific CV saved in Google Drive. You can request the resume by name or by date and ask Bard to summarize it to help you create a cover letter for the position.

Bard extensions are optional. You can therefore activate or deactivate them for each application. Personal information extracted from Gmail, Docs or Drive is not seen by human evaluators, is not used to offer you advertising, and is not used to train Bard, Google promises.

To try the Bard extensions, launch Chrome and go to the extensions page. There you can activate or deactivate the extensions for Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Maps, Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive) and YouTube. Activating Google Workspace will prompt you to log in to your Google Workspace account. This page presents some examples for each application so that you can give it a try before submitting your own requests.

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET

“@hotels”, “@flights” or “@maps”

Then, go to Bard and enter your question or request in the box reserved for this purpose. If your request contains a word such as “hotels”, “flights” or “directions”, Bard will automatically use the appropriate extension to formulate its response. Alternatively, you can reference the service you want to use using the “@” symbol. Start typing “@” followed by the service in question, such as “@hotels”, “@flights” or “@maps”, and Bard will choose the right service. Bard will then use the appropriate service to generate and display its response.

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET

But Bard users are not at the end of their sentences, however. One of the problems of current AI chatbots is that they are prone to misinformation, or hallucinations, as the developers call it.

In an attempt to guard against these problems, Bard now offers a way to double-check the answers (in English for now). When the answer appears, click on the Google icon.

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET

Google Bard then evaluates its own response and searches the web for sources to verify the information. Each sentence or expression of the answer is then highlighted. By clicking on a highlighted section, the source of the information is displayed.

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET

Exploiting shared conversations

Another novelty from Bard, Google now allows you to exploit shared conversations. Share a Bard conversation with someone else by means of a link. This person can then continue the conversation and ask Bard other questions on the subject. So you can both use Bard collaboratively to explore the same topic.

“All these new features are possible thanks to the updates we have made to our PaLM 2 model, the most successful to date,” Google said in a blog post about the Bard updates. “Based on your feedback, we have applied reinforcement learning techniques to make the model more intuitive and more imaginative. So, whether you want to collaborate on a project, start in one language and continue in one of the more than 40 others, or request coding assistance, Bard can now respond with even greater quality and precision”.

Source: “ZDNet.com “