Google’s Bard chatbot now responds in real time — and you can shut it up mid-sentence

Google’s Bard AI chatbot can now reply to your questions in real time, as spotted earlier by 9to5Google. Bard previously only sent a response when it was complete, but now you can get a glimpse at your answer as it’s getting generated.

If you don’t want Bard to respond to your questions in real time, you can still switch between the “Respond in real time” and “Respond when complete” options from the cog icon in the top-right corner of Bard’s window. Bing Chat, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, also responds in real time.

In case you don’t like the response that’s getting generated, Google now lets you cut off the bot mid-sentence. When Bard starts generating a reply, you’ll see a “Skip response” button that appears above the prompt box. Press it, and Bard will stop generating its reply, allowing you to type in another question or regenerate its response without having to wait for the whole answer.

If you do end up waiting for the answer, you can still press the “view other drafts” button to see Bard’s alternate responses. Google also lets you modify the response to become more “casual” or “professional,” and you can also double-check any answers against the information in Search by hitting the Google logo in the bottom menu bar.

Alongside these features, Google introduced a couple of other updates, including a way for you to see uploaded images in shared conversations. Additionally, Bard can now summarize more of your emails at once if you’re using it with Gmail, and Google says it can “better understand” when you need the latest emails, too.