Google has included Swahili in its conversational AI, Bard expansion to 40 new languages. Swahili becomes the first African language to be incorporated into the chatbot as Google Bard expands to 59 new countries and territories.
The expansion includes new features that allow users to better customize, boost their creativity, and get more done.
Google Bard is now available in most parts of the world, and in the most widely spoken languages including Swahili, Chinese, German, Spanish, Arabic and Hindi.
Users can now access Bard in their preferred language with text-to-speech also enabled in 8 languages.
“We’re excited that this is Bard’s largest expansion to date – we see its global availability as a great democratizer of knowledge,” said Dorothy Ooko, Head of Communications and Public Affairs, SSA, Google. “That’s why we created Bard: to help you explore that curiosity, augment
your imagination and ultimately get your ideas off the ground — not just by answering your questions, but by helping you build on them. ”
Improving Bard
According to UNESCO, Swahili is among the 10 top widely spoken languages in the world with more than 200 million speakers.
The inclusion of more languages and territories seeks to help make Bard more inclusive and safe, through feedback from a wider range of users.
“The launch of Bard in Swahili is a major milestone as it allows Bard to reach even more people in Africa, where approximately 150 million people speak Swahili. This makes Bard more accessible to everyone in the region, and we believe that it has the potential to be a powerful
tool for creativity and learning. We are excited to see how people in the region use Bard to explore their ideas and discover new things,” said Rachael Ndichu, Language Manager at Google.
As an experimental technology, Google Bard may make inaccurate statements in response to user prompts. If the response received is inaccurate or unsafe, or users just want to provide feedback, Google has provided an easier way to do so.
New Quality and Feature Updates Launched
The new updates launched include listening to responses which is available in over 40 languages. In addition users will can to listen to Bard’s responses once they select the sound icon.
Users can now adjust Bard’s responses by changing the tone and style of its responses to five different options including simple, long, short, professional and casual. This feature is currently available in English with the company saying it will expand to new languages soon.
Google has also launched four new features to help users get more done:
- Users can now pin and rename their conversations with Bard.
- Users can now Export code to other places. Users can now export Python code to Replit, and Google Colab.
- In addition, users can now share their responses with friends using shareable links.
- Image Prompts. Users can now upload images with prompts to Bard.
Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of Google’s large language models.
