Google Rolls Out Bard AI to Greece

On Thursday, Google rolled out Bard, its AI (artificial intelligence) chatbot, to Greece. The introduction of Bard to Greece was part of a wider push to make the AI chatbot available across the European Union.

Bard’s introduction to the EU was delayed by privacy concerns flagged by the bloc’s main privacy regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission.

Bard is Google’s answer to other popular AI chatbots like OpenAI’s immensely popular ChatGPT. Bard is capable of performing a variety of functions such as answering questions, translating texts, and producing written content based on user inputs.

Googles Bard AI chatbot comes to Greece

Bard is now available for use in over 40 languages, including Greek and other languages spoken in the EU. Google claims that its AI chatbot will act as a “creative and helpful collaborator” and that it will “supercharge your imagination, boost your productivity and bring your ideas to life.”

The tech giant has touted a range of Bard’s features that it promises will enhance user experiences. With the integration of Google Lens, users can upload images containing text during conversations, tapping into the power of visual context and information provided by Google Lens.

To improve organization and continuity, Bard introduces pinned and recent threads. Users can resume conversations right where they left off, while also being able to prioritize important discussions. This feature allows for the pinning and renaming of conversations, facilitating easy access and management of multiple ongoing conversations at the same time.

Sharing conversations with others has also been made simpler. Users can now share their entire conversation with Bard or specific parts of it with their network. Google says that this functionality encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing among users.

Legal wrangling and privacy concerns

Before Google could introduce the Bard AI chatbot to Greece and the rest of the EU, it had to satisfy a number of privacy concerns that had been flagged by the Irish Data Protection Commission.

Because Google has established its European headquarters in Ireland, the Irish watchdog assumes the role of Google’s primary data regulator within the European Union (EU). With the regulator now satisfied with Google’s transparency policy the company has been able to push ahead with rolling out Bard in Europe.

“Google have made a number of changes in advance of [the] launch, in particular increased transparency and changes to controls for users,” said Graham Doyle, the Irish regulator’s deputy commissioner and spokesperson.

“Transparency,” “control,” and “choice” were the key focus areas for Google as they added new features to enhance Bard, according to Google’s Senior Product Director Jack Krawczyk, who shared this information with reporters prior to the launch. With these updates, users will gain insights into how their information is utilized, have the ability to opt out of certain uses, and exercise control over which conversations with Bard are saved or deleted by Google.