Google Bard

Google will pitch Bard Advanced as providing ‘complex, better responses’

Abner Li | Jan 19 2024 - 10:16 am PT

At the start of December, Google said Gemini Ultra would launch in early 2024 and be available in “Bard Advanced.” When it launches, Google will position Bard Advanced as providing “complex, better responses.”

This detail comes from Bard glitching out on Thursday and prematurely serving what should be the next version of bard.google.com that supports Bard Advanced. A dropdown at the top of the page will let you choose between:

Bard: For simpler, faster responses
Bard Advanced: For complex, better responses

Bard today runs Gemini Pro, which is meant to compete with GPT 3.5, while Gemini Ultra was touted by Google as surpassing GPT 4 in benchmarks.

Meanwhile, we’ve also seen a Bard / Bard Advanced picker being readied in the Google app earlier this week when we reported that the “Assistant with Bard” brand was being removed. On Android, this “Advanced mode on Mobile” provides access to “Google’s best AI models.” The company warns that the experience is “Not fully optimized for Mobile” and to “Please note that not all Advanced features are available on mobile yet.”

In visiting bard.google.com/chat yesterday, a reader of ours also spotted some design tweaks (though the page is clearly not finished). This newer version disappeared after a few minutes — the Bard Advanced was never live, which suggests an error on Google’s part.

Last month, Google said Gemini Ultra was undergoing “extensive trust and safety checks,” as well as model refinements. The last update we got was at Unpacked this week when Google said “Samsung will be one of the first partners to test Gemini Ultra, our largest model for highly complex tasks, before it is available broadly to developers and enterprise customers later this year.”