Google Bard Officially Rebranded to Gemini

Author: Muhammad Alif
February 12, 2024

Gemini AI Chatbot will be released next week. Photo source: Medium

SEAToday.com, Jakarta- Google has officially changed the name of its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Bard, to Gemini. This change was announced by Google and Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, through a post on the company's blog.

According to Pichai, the change was made to better reflect the core technology in Bard, namely Google's Large Language Model (LLM) called Gemini. Not just changing the name, Google is also preparing a separate AI Gemini chatbot application for mobile on the Android platform. This is different from Bard which can only be accessed via the URL address https://bard.google.com/.

Google said that the mobile version of the Gemini app is expected to make it easier for users to access the AI chatbot via smartphones. This application will be available next week.

Apart from being a chatbot, the Gemini app on Android can also be set up as a virtual assistant, replacing Google Assistant. However, this support is still an optional feature as Google Assistant is also still available.

The Gemini app is specifically aimed at Android users, at least for now. As for iOS users, they can also try out the sophistication of the Gemini chatbot, but through the Search application. This is because the Google search engine is also being integrated with Gemini starting next week.

Not only in Search, Google is also embedding Gemini in various other products including Workspace. Some of the AI-based features supported by Gemini for Workspace are already available through Duet AI, but are now called Gemini only.

The AI features in question include features that will help users draft e-mails, and manage spreadsheets to features that help complete other document-based tasks.

Gemini is by far claimed as the most convenient AI Chatbot compared to Microsoft ‘Copilot’ and OpenAI ‘ChatGPT’ as Gemini has been available across Google services with access to GPT-4. Meanwhile, ChatGPT needs extra payment for GPT-4 access. But if you need extra visual features with information leading up to early 2022, Microsoft ‘Copilot’ is the option. (ALIF/DKD)