The power of Bard with the practical side of Google Assistant is soon a reality

During its conference, Google announced Assistant with Bard (or Assistant with Bard in English). It is an assistant using generative AI to help you with all your tasks, including on the Google suite. It will be functional in a few months on smartphones.

2023 is the year of artificial intelligence and Google is one of the players showing it (and claiming it). After a Google I/O 2023 conference full of announcements, Made by Google could only do the same. Google introduced Assistant with Bard, a new, still experimental way to use the best of both worlds. The practical side of Google Assistant applied to the power of a Google bard. At the same time, Google announced the availability of Android 14, the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, the Pixel Watch 2 as well as the Pixel Buds Pro update.

Google Bard intends to surpass Google Assistant

During its conference, Google explained that you can interact with this assistant through text, voice and even images. The idea is that it can help you write texts, make decisions, and inform yourself. The other strength of this assistant is that it is integrated into some of Google’s services, particularly office automation. We’re talking about Gmail, Google Docs and even Google Sheets. Like Microsoft’s Copilot, it intends to interpret spreadsheets, shorten or summarize texts, etc. Assistant with Bard also works with other platforms like YouTube or Google Maps.

But the big novelty, let’s even say the surprise presented during the conference, was the integration of Bard, in the long term, with Google Assistant: for example, we can ask him to prepare an evening with his friends, inspiration for a video game project, etc.

At the moment, it appears that Assistant with Bard is a differentiated app from Google Assistant. It is not a voice assistant, but a personal assistant (although it can work via voice control). Google hasn’t made the end of Google Assistant official, but the two could coexist for a while. The vision presented by Google is that all of this can work directly on your Android smartphone.

Another use: if you want to publish the photo of your adorable puppy (because he is obviously very cute), the Bard button in Google Photos will allow you to ask him to share it on the social networks of your choice while automatically writing a message for you. Bard has image recognition which allows him to “ interpret »: Google envisions this as “ a whole new way to interact with your phone. »

Another example: an evening with a friend. He sent you an email during the week, but you missed it. If you ask Bard for a summary of the most important emails, the topic of the evening may come up. You can then ask the assistant where it takes place, and how long it takes to get there. So, Assistant with Bard uses Google Maps to give you this information. In one click, you can open the application to get there. Assistant with Bard can also write you shopping lists based on your wishes and the number of people who need to be fed. Google wants to save time for users of the application.

An AI assistant that doesn’t arrive right away

Assistant with Bard is currently unavailable. Google has indicated that it will be usable on Android and iOS smartphones “ In the coming months “. No browser output (through the Chrome browser) was mentioned. The company also tries to reassure about the privacy issues posed by this assistant boosted by Bard, specifying that you can adjust your confidentiality settings.

For the moment, this “ assistant with Bard » will enter the experimental phase. It will soon be offered to the first testers in order to collect feedback, before making it available to everyone in the coming months. We can imagine a major update during Google I/O 2024, which should take place next May.