Dive Brief:
- Google is rolling out a new way for users to access its generative AI chatbot, Bard, across its suite of products, the company announced Tuesday.
- A feature called Extensions connects Bard to Gmail, Docs and Drive, letting the tool locate and summarize files and pull relevant information from email threads, according to a blog post.
- Human reviewers will not see content that Bard pulls from Gmail, Docs and Drive. The content is not used to curate ads or train Bard, and users can turn off extensions at any time, the company said.
Dive Insight:
Generative AI is creeping into enterprise tools and systems, from CRMs to ERPs and collaboration tools. Google’s latest Bard expansion brings the tech directly to customers in tools they already use daily, a plan that was teased in April.
Microsoft took a similar route to embedding generative AI capabilities into already popular products with its 365 Copilot. The company unveiled pricing for the productivity tool in July with rates of $30 per user, per month. The tool is not yet available broadly for enterprise users.
While Google and Microsoft were among the first tech providers to make inroads on generative AI integration, there’s an ever-growing landscape of generative AI tools to choose from. Some tools may appeal more to tech leaders than others.
Kathy Kay, CIO and EVP at Principal Financial Group, chose to start her company’s generative AI journey with offerings provided by their cloud providers. Other technology leaders took similar paths, leveraging systems and services they already have access to or deepening partnerships with providers.
As enterprise executives keep working on responsible, secure generative AI adoption, questions remain as regulatory agencies create new frameworks and work to clarify legal gray areas.
Copyright is one area of contention as generative AI tools use existing data to create new content. The fear is that models could have been trained on protected data sets which then would lead to the model generating copyrighted information to be used in an enterprise context.
Microsoft said it would assume responsibility for potential legal risks involved with using its Copilot services earlier this month, so long as customers used the guardrails and content filters built into its products.
To mitigate inaccuracies, another risk with generative AI models, Google updated Bard with a feature to show source material found via its search engine.
