Google Bard AI Has New Features and Supported Languages

Google has been moving to position itself back at the top of the AI game in this new generative AI era. Its biggest effort in this direction, is, of course, Google Bard. It’s still a bit limited, but now, it’s getting greatly expanded, as it’s coming to more countries and adding new features.

As of the time we’re writing this, Google Bard is now officially available in pretty much all of the countries and territories Google currently operates in, bringing the total up to 238 countries and territories across all continents.

The total of languages is also being brought up to 46 languages, including the ones listed below.

This is a significant improvement given alternatives like ChatGPT, despite being global, aren’t (officially) available everywhere. The list of countries Bard is available in includes countries such as Italy, where ChatGPT was blocked until rather recently over privacy concerns, and Venezuela, where it’s blocked because of sanctions by the US government. Likewise, the newly added languages ensure everyone around the world can use Bard in their native language.

As part of this wider update, Bard is also getting a range of improvements. For one, you can now ask Bard to read responses out loud if you want it to read a poem, or if you’re just wondering about the pronunciation of a specific word. And if an answer isn’t good enough for you, you can also ask Bard to change its tone to be longer, shorter, simpler, more casual, or more professional — this latter feature is only available in English for now.