Google releases chatbot in Europe after addressing privacy concerns

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Google is launching its artificial intelligence-based chatbot across Europe, after being forced to upgrade safety measures to comply with regulatory demands over copyright and users’ privacy.

The US tech giant had planned to release its Bard chatbot across the EU in June, but was delayed after regulators in Ireland, where the company has its European headquarters, demanded reassurances that enough safeguards were in place to protect European consumers.

Google on Thursday said it had satisfied the Irish watchdog’s requirements by tightening the privacy settings on its Bard chatbot to increase transparency so users know how their data is being used and giving them more control over it.

“Google has made a number of changes,” Ireland’s Data Protection Commission said ahead of Thursday’s launch, in particular “to controls for users”.

The clearance to expand in Europe will allow Google to press ahead with its challenge to rivals such as Microsoft-backed Open AI that are racing to build products through generative AI — software that can create text, images and code. It has launched Bard in about 180 countries, from Algeria to Zimbabwe.

As OpenAI does not yet have an EU-based headquarters, individual countries can look at whether the company complies with data protection rules. Italy briefly suspended OpenAI’s ChatGPT in March over privacy concerns before allowing the service to be resumed a few weeks later.

Google has also expanded features for Bard. From Thursday the chatbot will be available in more than 40 languages and Google has added the ability to listen to the chatbot’s responses, to pin and rename conversations and to use images in prompts for the English language service only.

Brussels has initiated some of the toughest rules governing the technology through its proposed AI act, prompting outcry from the region’s companies and executives.

“Companies looking to set up AI ventures in Europe will need to comply with our new AI rules,” said Dragoș Tudorache, an MEP who led the development of the legislation. “The rules we set in place are proportionate, and are designed for ease of compliance in order to stimulate innovation and market access. They are about transparency and social responsibility.”