Google’s Bard launched in Ireland as new software latest to join growing AI landscape

The Google Bard website. The chatbot can generate responses in more than 40 languages, including Chinese and Hindi, and was launched in around 180 countries prior to its release in the EU.

Alphabet Inc’s Google released its chatbot, Bard, to Ireland and the rest of the European Union this week.

It is the latest rival of the now widely-popular ChatGPT, which broke the record last January for having the fastest-growing user base in history, exceeding 100 million in just two months.

Since the chatbot's successful inception, a number of new rivals have entered the growing market for artificial intelligence, including Microsoft which released its own AI-powered Bing search engine, as well as Amazon's Bedrock generative AI service.

Joining the party, Bard runs off Google's internal infrastructure. The chatbot can generate responses in more than 40 languages, including Chinese and Hindi, and was launched in around 180 countries prior to its release in the EU.

The delay was due to uncertainty around the AI service’s compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, the company said.

However, Google's owner, Alphabet said it had  “very productive conversations with privacy regulators here in Europe,” senior product director Jack Krawczyk told reporters ahead of the EU rollout. “We expect it to be an ongoing dialogue in how we continue to build that transparency, choice, and control.” 

Data concerns

Mr Krawczyk added that Google will now give users clear notices about how their data is being used and stored, and let them choose not to allow the company’s employees to review conversations, which Google does to understand and improve the product. These control options will be available globally, not just in the EU.

As concerns of data-sharing among leading tech giants become increasingly amplified, EU legislation is increasingly slowing down the rollout of tech products in the bloc. 

For example, Meta Platforms Inc. has yet to launch its newest app, Threads, in the EU’s 27 countries due to the company wanting more time to work out how the EU will enforce new competition laws that prohibit gatekeepers from combining data between platforms, a person familiar with the matter has said.

Chat services built on large language models have hit roadblocks in Europe before due to existing data protection laws. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, for example, was temporarily shut down in Italy over related issues.

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In a company blog post timed to the announcement, chief executive of Google and parent company, Alphabet, Sundar Pichai said: "We’ve been working on an experimental conversational AI service that we’re calling Bard. And today, we’re taking another step forward by opening it up to testers ahead of making it more widely available to the public in the coming weeks.

"The scale of the largest AI computations is doubling every six months," Mr Pichai added. "At the same time, advanced generative AI and large language models are capturing the imaginations of people around the world."

The CEO also noted that other features would be coming to Bard in some regions, including the ability to hear responses spoken out loud, to upload images with prompts, and to have the AI tool analyse photos.