Sept 19 Reuters Alphabet Inc39;s Google said on Tuesday that Bard, its generative artificial intelligence, will have the ability to factcheck its answers and analyze users39; personal Google data as the tech giant scrambles to catch up to ChatGPT in popularity.

The release last year of ChatGPT, a chatbot from Microsoftbacked OpenAI, sparked a race in the tech industry to give consumers access to generative AI technology. At the time, ChatGPT was the fastestgrowing consumer application ever and is now one of the top 30 websites in the world.

Bard has not taken off in the same way. In August, it received 183 million visits, 13 of what ChatGPT received, according to website analytics firm Similarweb.

As it seeks to gain ground in the fastmoving AI space, Google is rolling out Bard Extensions, enabling users to import their data from other Google products. For instance, users could ask Bard to search their files in Google Drive or provide a summary of the users Gmail inbox. For now, Bard users will only be able to pull information in from Google apps, but Google is working with external companies to connect their applications into Bard in the future, Google senior product director Jack Krawczyk said.

Another new feature in Bard seeks to alleviate a nagging problem for generative AI inaccurate responses known as hallucinations. Bard users will be able to see which parts of Bards answers differ from and agree with Google search results.

We are presenting Bard in a way…