In development: Bard AI could let you speak with your Chromebook as though it’s a person

I’m literally going to be talking today about how you could talk to your laptop like Tony Stark does to Jarvis – something I never thought I’d say because it just seems so far-fetched to say out loud. We’ve had Google Assistant baked into the ChromeOS launcher for years, but it’s a far cry from the highly intelligent, contextually savvy AI Iron Man has packed into his suit.

However, the recent boom around ChatGPT has put both Microsoft and Google on edge, and some reports even state the latter has rushed its “Apprentice Bard” AI to market as a result. Each of the chatbots that are now available and those that are coming soon will let you speak casually to them and reply with human-like responses. The difference is that while trained on real data, it constructs a response on the fly by itself. This means that it’s not just returning existing results like Google Search or other engines have for the past three decades.

With the recent news of Apprentice Bard being integrated directly into Google Search in the same way that ChatGPT has been plugged into Bing Search, one would presume that’s all there is to it. However, a new report by 9to5Google reveals the tech giant is working to let Chromebook users tap the ‘Everything button’ on their keyboard and speak or type to Bard directly.

Launcher experiment: conversational search.

To evaluate the viability of a conversational search provider as part of launcher search.

#launcher-chat

Dubbed “Conversational Search”, the launcher experiment is just that – an experiment. Sure, many of the other launcher experiments in ChromeOS did come to fruition, but there’s no guarantee that one will just because it is being tested out. That being said, I do see Bard as an upgrade coming to Google Assistant despite Google never having mentioned that to date.

It makes perfect sense – upgrade the intelligence of Assistant using LaMDA, package it from a marketing angle as a boost to its contextual and conversational capabilities and it’s accepted by the masses in a way that a new product wouldn’t be.

Though it’s still fresh in the news, I can see Bard being integrated into Google Shopping and many other Google services as a way to casually converse with an AI to choose the right product by asking questions how you would in a conversation with a friend or salesman. Time will tell what the future holds for AI in big tech, but one thing is for certain – we have a crazy decade ahead of us.