Google is reportedly planning to release some changes to its AI chatbot Bard on February 7. For example, the name of the tool would be changed to Gemini, a paid subscription would be available and a specialized Android app would be released.
Google Bard is being renamed to Gemini because that has recently become the underlying AI model of the chatbot, it appears a change log that Android developer Dylan Roussel shares. In addition to the name change, it is reported that Google has overhauled the user interface. While it doesn’t say what exactly has changed, it should reduce ‘visual distractions’ and improve readability. It should also be easier to navigate through the AI tool.
It is also mentioned that a paid subscription has been added: Gemini Advanced. This uses Google’s most advanced AI model, Ultra 1.0. More exclusive features should become available for this subscription ‘in the coming months’. Examples mentioned are ‘multimodal capabilities’, better coding functions and ‘the ability to upload and analyze files, documents and data in more depth, among other things’. The existence of such a subscription became clear last month from code from the Google Bard website. It turned out that the subscription will be part of Google One, although this is not mentioned in the changelog.
Finally, a Gemini app for Android should be available next week. According to Google, the chatbot is integrated with other Google services, such as Gmail, Maps and YouTube. The app will only be available for ‘certain devices’ and will not initially be released in the European Union.