Google’s Bard prepares to add extensions, giving you useful travel and shopping power ups

Google’s Bard has often found itself relegated to being the last resort for AI chatbot aficionados. This could be due to a multitude of reasons, and many could argue that it comes down to a user’s preference or disdain for one of the major tech giant over another. However, there’s no denying that Bard has its charm. Despite the comparisons and rivalries, it stands out with its unique approach to interaction, feeling a tad more personable than even ChatGPT when left untrained by the end user.

Taking major strides, Bard recently added functionality that lets you create and debug code, as well as interact with Google Lens. Now, it can also speak out loud (a bit creepy), let’s you create and pin multiple conversations, analyzes images to enhance its responses, and more, all while becoming available in over 40 countries. But the evolution doesn’t stop there.

As 9to5Google reports, Bard is gearing up to introduce a whole suite of extensions aimed at amplifying its responses to your questions and requests. These include Google Flights, Hotels, and Maps, as well as Kayak, Instacart, OpenTable, Redfin, Zillow, and even YouTube. While these features have appeared in the user interface, they are not yet operational. There is a check box for activation, but it does nothing at this time, which just means we’re a bit early to the party!

There’s a hope, almost palpable, that these new features will elevate Bard from its “less than stellar” reputation – especially after the disaster that Google Assistant has become. Despite Google’s AI being intricately tied to Search, it’s often fallen short of delivering…well, intelligent, responses.

As we look forward to these up and coming use cases – like planning trips, shopping for groceries or a new home – I hope one could easily get accurate information on pricing, availability, and a plethora of other specifics that are typically omitted from standard web listings. Imagine asking your chatbot about the color of your hotel room walls or how high your room will be, and receiving an accurate response. Obviously, those are bad examples, but you get the point.

AI’s strength lies not just in providing information but humanizing it, making it relatable and digestible by doling it out based on user queries. It sure beats taking in a ton of unfiltered information through your eyes as though the web page were a fire hose. This year, the company also stated that future integrations for Bard may also include services like Adobe Firefly, potentially offering Midjourney-style image creation. So, the question stands: is this the leap you’ve been waiting for in Google’s AI efforts, or are you on the precipice of an AI overload?