To take the competition head-on and challenge rival platforms like ChatGPT, Google has announced a couple of new features for Bard. The Mountain View tech giant has announced Bard Extensions and the ability to double-check responses in Bard to give users more customized responses.

With Bard Extensions at work, you can get smart responses, containing relevant information from various Google apps and services, including Gmail, Docs, Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, and more. From helping you plan a trip on dates that work for everyone to finding your resume in Drive, Bard Extensions can help users get things done faster in one single browser tab. However, Extensions are available only in the English language at launch.

You can get more if you've set English as the default language. Bard will not only tailor its responses according to your needs but will also give you the option to double-check them by searching the web for supporting or contradicting information. This way, you can better evaluate the answers and not fall prey to AI hallucination, a phenomenon where AI systems can deceive users by showing them wrong information. You can use Bard's "Google it" button to double-check its responses in English.

Another interesting new feature in Bard is being able to build to continue someone else's conversations and ask additional questions related to that topic. If someone shares a public link to their Bard chat, you can use that as a starting point to bring your ideas to life by asking more questions. Thankfully, the feature works even if the responses are not in English.

Google has also announced broader availability of features such as uploading images with Lens, getting Search images in responses, and modifying Bard’s responses. They all are now available in more than 40 languages.

Hopefully, the company will make more of its "English language features" available in other languages as it brings more powerful updates to the PaLM 2 model, which powers Bard.