How to Find Your Stuff in Gmail and Docs Using Google Bard? Google recently released a slew of improvements to Bard, its AI chatbot. Extensions that connect Bard to other areas of Google’s portfolio, including Gmail, Docs, and YouTube, are among the new features. As part of the next generation of information retrieval, the business is continuing to experiment with artificial intelligence.
Although my initial impressions of Bard’s extensions are lacklustre, anyone with a large number of unread Gmail messages or an archive of old Google Docs to sort through may find the update useful.
However, before communicating with any chatbot, consider the privacy consequences. “If you choose to use the Workspace extensions, your content from Gmail, Docs and Drive is not seen by human reviewers, used by Bard to show you ads, or used to train the Bard model,” according to the company’s press release. Is it sufficient confidence for you? Here’s how to activate updates for Bard, as well as some tips to keep in mind.
What is Google Bard?
Google Bard is a huge language model chatbot created by Google AI and trained on a massive text and code dataset. It is a conversational AI tool that may be used for a range of purposes such as idea generation, stimulating creativity, and increasing productivity.
PaLM 2, a 540-billion parameter language model that is one of the most advanced in the world, powers Bard. This enables Bard to generate writing, translate languages, create many types of creative content, and provide intelligent answers to inquiries.
How to Use Extensions for Google Bard?
To interact with Bard, you must first create a Google account if you do not already have one. Accessing Bard is as simple as viewing the website on your browser once you’ve logged in.
You may connect to Google Maps, YouTube, Google Flights, Google Hotels, and Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Drive, from the Bard main page. Each of these extensions can be toggled on and off separately.
If you use the Workspace extension, be sure you tag whatever you want the chatbot to focus on, such as @docs, @drive, or @gmail. Here is an example of a prompt: “Please check my @gmail and summarise the unread emails from today.”
How to Find Your Stuff in Gmail and Docs Using Google Bard?
When working with the new Bard extensions, it’s critical to keep your expectations low. Many AI features introduced in 2023 have been labelled as experiments, including Bard’s upgrade. It seeks to prioritise your Gmail’s most recent emails. Bard frequently referred to five linked messages when answering my queries. When I asked it to name the oldest communication from WIRED in my inbox, it referred to an email from last week. Only a few years away!
While you should always double-check information from a chatbot, Bard with extensions seemed to hallucinate and misinterpret the context of material it had collected from my emails and other documents very frequently. When I asked if there were any messages from my father, for example, Bard selected a random Father’s Day promotion that had been sitting in my inbox since 2017 and labelled it as the lone message from him.
So, in their current state, how can the Bard extensions be useful? Do you have an email or a document that you’re looking for but can’t remember the specifics other than the topic covered? This appears to be the ideal application for the new Bard. The chatbot was able to gather information on a variety of topics I requested, ranging from video games to swimming pools.
Another intriguing application for the new extension is its capacity to provide written comments. When asked to identify any emails that could have been written better, Bard chose three from my Gmail and gave solid advice on how to modify the tone and make them more concise.
However, the chatbot isn’t particularly useful when it comes to nuance. Bard’s response was nearly funny when asked if there were any “microaggressions” in my mailbox. It chose a Substack email from Brandon Taylor that used the word “sentimental period drama” to describe The Gilded Age television series. “This could be seen as a microaggression against people who enjoy period dramas, as it suggests that these shows are not serious or worthwhile.” Sure thing, Bard. While technically correct, this is hardly what most people would consider a microaggression.
Despite Silicon Valley’s promotion of AI helpers as productivity boosters, the Bard upgrade is far from approximating the anthropomorphic AI in Her. Aside from the unrealistic expectations, Bard has a lot of ground to fill before it seems like a trustworthy aide. For the time being, the classic, rectangular search bar at the top of my inbox remains the simplest method to discover whatever I’m looking for (and I know it’s not produced by AI).
Also Read: How to Use Google Bard in Gmail?
