While we’re in the European Union, we’re still finishing up welcoming the Bard, who It came with the biggest update the Google chatbot has seen in its still short life.Of course, the company is already working on future features that will enrich the experience of using it. And so, with competition as tough as ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing, and even more so given that these services have had more time to become popular among users, it’s clear that Google needs to act quickly and precisely if it wants to capture a large part of this nascent but thriving market.

Not all of Bard’s future features are unknown, in fact, the one that is probably the most anticipated takes the top spot on the contrary, because it has been known for a long time, having been announced by the company at Google I/O 2023, which generated a lot of interest from many people (including me), but it is not yet available on the service. I’m talking about extensions, of course.

Already available in ChatGPT but only in its paid version and also announced by Microsoft for Bing, these add-ons allow add functionality and/or information sources to chatbots, so their answers in these areas are much better. Moreover, in some cases, such as the integration of Adobe Firefly into Bard, the chatbot’s functionality is also extended, as it will be able to generate images from prompts.

Google has already shown us that it prefers not to “snap its fingers” (a decision that seems very reasonable to me, really), so it does not postpone the dates of the arrival of new features for its chatbot. Instead, he waits for these to be polished, when the legal reserve is complete, before deploying them. That happens in this case too, but thanks to 9to5Google We can already see what the Bard expansion will offerwith probably the first services to be integrated into the chatbot.

As it was conceivable and also understandable, among the first extensions that reached Bard we can see four (of the nine shown in the image) that connect it to Google services:

• Google Flight
• Google Hotels
• google maps
• Youtube

Thanks to the combination of the first three, a chatbot can become in today one of the most useful online trip planning toolsbecause it allows you to get dates and prices of flights and accommodation in a single conversation, as well as recommendations of places to visit, shop, plan meals, etc. Therefore, his choice does not seem far from random.

In addition to Google services, we see that Google extensions will also be included. two properties (Redfin and Zillow), service restaurant reservations (OpenTable), a popular flight and accommodation search engine kayaking and an online grocery shopping service instacart. And with this selection, we see that the company wanted to offer space to the competition of its own services, which also seems to me a very interesting point.

As I said earlier, there is currently no public release date for this first version of the Bard extension, but given that Microsoft has already announced it on Bing and that ChatGPT is probably already preparing for Google’s response, cyou should hope it doesn’t take too long although, and we must take this into account, it is likely that only some countries will be affected in the first phase of deployment.