Google has begun opening up Google Bard, its answer to ChatGPT and other AI chat solutions, to the public. There is now a way to sign up for a waitlist at bard.google.com if you are based in the US or UK.

I signed up, but note, that you cannot use your Google Workspace account to sign up; you need to use a personal Google account to sign up.

Bard not Search. As a reminder, Google Bard is not a replacement for Search. “Bard is separate from Search, so talking about the Search screenshots in the context of Bard isn’t accurate. Bard is one thing, and then generative AI features in Search are separate. Bard is a standalone experience, not in Search,” Jack Krawczyk, the product lead for Bard, said some time ago.

What it looks like. Here is a video Google shared of Bard in action:

Here is a screenshot of Bard from Google:

Impressions. I do not yet have access to Bard, although I am told I should have access soon. Until then, The Verge reviewed Bard and said, Bard is “certainly faster than either (though this may be simply because it currently has fewer users) and seems to have as potentially broad capabilities as these other systems. (In our brief tests, it was also able to generate lines of code, for example.) But it also lacks Bing’s clearly labeled footnotes, which Google says only appear when it directly quotes a source like a news article and seemed generally more constrained in its answers.”

Why we care. We are now closer to seeing Google Bard out in the wild. How users will use Bard, where Bard might stumble and shine, how Bard will be integrated into Search will be fun to watch over the coming weeks and months. For now, go sign up for the waitlist and I hope you gain access soon.