LONDON (AP) — Google on Thursday announced the launch of its artificial intelligence chatbot Bard in Europe and Brazil, expanding its availability to hundreds of millions of additional users.
The company also announced that it will add more features to Bard as it works to catch up with rival Microsoft — which uses the popular OpenAI ChatGPT service on Bing — in the race to capitalize on the generative AI technology that has captured the world’s attention.
Google Bard launched in February, but its planned introduction in the European Union was delayed last month as regulators reviewed whether the service complied with the 27-nation bloc’s strict privacy rules.
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The company noted that it has “proactively worked with privacy experts, policymakers, and regulators.”
The Irish Data Protection Commission, Google’s main regulator on privacy issues in the European Union, said it had sent the internet giant a detailed list of questions for more information.
As a result, Google suspended the launch and “made a number of changes” ahead of Thursday’s presentation to Europe, “notably more transparency and changes to user controls,” according to the Commission.
Google detailed the improvements in a blog post, noting that Bard can now be used in more than 40 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi, and Spanish.
“Beer enthusiast. Subtly charming alcohol junkie. Wannabe internet buff. Typical pop culture lover.”