Google’s AI chatbot has Acquired the Ability to Speak in the Style of William Shakespeare

Google’s chatbot AI, Bard, received several new features and functions in its latest update on Thursday. These include an increase in linguistic knowledge, improved response controls with more subtlety, and the capability to respond using spoken word as well as text. As a result, Bard can now engage in conversations in almost 48 different languages.

Users can now chat with the AI in languages including Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi and Spanish, and access the platform from more locations on the planet, including Brazil and “all around Europe,” Jack Krawczyk, Bard’s chief product officer, and Amarnag Subramanya, Bard’s director of engineering, wrote in a blog post Thursday. “As we bring Bard to more regions and languages over time, we’ll continue to guide our AI principles, consider user feedback, and take steps to protect people’s privacy and data.”

The Bard now speaks literally. Users have the option to either read or listen to the answers generated by the AI, which Krawczyk and Subramanya believe will help tremendously when users want to hear the correct pronunciation of words in these 40 newly added languages. Users are also given stronger control over how friendly Bard will be with five different options for the AI’s tone: simple, tall, short, professional, or casual. They’re currently only available with English-language requests, but the company is already looking to expand that to 40 more “soon.”

The chatbot also has cool new multimodal eyes that gain the ability to interpret images dropped into the conversation via the prompt field. Faster and easier than uploading it as a document, users can request more information about the content of the image or create content based on it, such as captions. This is also currently only in English.

Getting the data and code produced by Bard out of the chat window and into the hands of collaborators is no longer so boring. Starting Thursday, users can export Python code created by Bard to Replit in addition to Colab. They can also copy and share parts of individual conversations with other users. The process of organizing and revisiting old conversations is also streamlined with the addition of pinned conversations, how they sound, and the ability to rename them.