Africa-Press – Eritrea. Google has announced the expansion of Bard, its conversational AI assistant, to 40 new languages including Swahili, the first African language. The tech giant has also made the service available in 59 new countries and territories. The expansion includes new features that allow users to better customize their experience, and boost their creativity.
In a presser, Google said that with the expansion, Bard is now available in most parts of the world, including countries in the European Union (EU), and can be accessed in most widely spoken languages including Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi, Spanish and Swahili.
According to UNESCO, Swahili is among the 10 most widely spoken languages in the world, with more than 200 million speakers. “The inclusion of more languages and territories will also help to make Bard more inclusive and safe, through feedback from a wider range of users,” the company said.
“Users can now access Bard in their preferred language with text-to-speech also enabled in eight languages.”
Google head of communications and public affairs SSA Dorothy Ooko said that being its largest expansion to date, Bard is globally available as a great democratizer of knowledge.
“This is why we created Bard; to help users explore their curiosity, augment their imagination and ultimately get their ideas off the ground,” she said.
“This is not just by answering questions, but by helping users build on them.”
Google language manager Rachael Ndichu noted that the launch of Bard in Swahili marks a major milestone as it allows the AI assistant to reach more people in Africa.
“With approximately over 200 million Swahili speakers, Bard is more accessible to everyone in the region and we believe that it has the potential to be a powerful tool for creativity and learning,” Ndichu said.
“We are excited to see how people in the region use Bard to explore their ideas and discover new things.”
The new updates launched include listening to responses which are available in over 40 languages and allow users to listen to Bard’s responses once they select the sound icon.
This, according to Google, is especially helpful if users want to hear the correct pronunciation of a word or listen to a poem or script. Additionally, users can also now adjust Bard’s responses by changing the tone and style of its responses to five different options.
These are simple, long, short, professional or casual. This feature is live in English and will expand to new languages soon. Individuals can also now pin and rename their conversations with Bard, making it easier to revisit conversations that contain important information or ideas later.
Other new advancements include the export code to more places feature, which allows to export Python code to Replit. This is in addition to Google Colab, which seeks to make it easier for users to share their code with others or use it in other projects.
“Users will also be able to share responses with friends using shareable links, making it easier to collaborate on projects or get feedback on ideas,” Google added.
Also launched is a feature that allows users to upload images with prompts to Bard. Google noted that Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of the company’s large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide responses.
“As an experimental technology, Bard may occasionally make inaccurate statements in response to user prompts. So if a response from Bard is inaccurate or unsafe, if one experiences an issue, or just wants to provide feedback, there’s an easy way to do that,” Google said.
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