Google announced the Bard for generative AI assistants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot. It is accessible through the web browser but Google has plans to integrate it with Google Assistant for a native smartphone experience.
Assistant With Bard May Simply Become Bard on Smartphones
As per the report from 9to5Google, the new APK teardown of Google app v15.2 and discovered a noteworthy change. They found Assistant with Bard references being changed to simply Bard.
This major difference, where “Assistant with Bard” was replaced with “Bard”, was noticed in multiple places which makes it less likely to be an error on a Google employee’s part.
The introduction text has been changed from “Hi! I’m Assistant with Bard” to “Hi! I’m Bard”. The description of the new assistant has also changed and explains its purpose in a little more detail. You can refer to these changes in the screenshots below.
Google has also stopped referring to the older Assistant as “Assistant (classic)”.
All of these changes suggest Google is seeing Bard as its only Assistant for smartphones. It is now unlikely to release Bard as an extension or another version of the Assistant that we all have been using for so long. Interestingly, the change was spotted after Google recently announced the removal of multiple Assistant features, such as playing and controlling audiobooks on Google Play Books and setting or using media alarms, music alarms, or radio alarms.
