Which chatbot is better, Google Bard or Bing Chat? While ChatGPT has hogged all the limelight, how good are the alternatives?
Inspired by the success of ChatGPT, various tech companies have rushed to introduce a similar AI-powered generative chatbot. Google’s Bard and Bing Chat are two such products that are pretty similar in usage yet are poles apart in their responses and implementation.
While Microsoft has integrated GPT 4 from OpenAI as a Bing Chat language base, Google uses an in-house language module LaMDA to train Google Bard. Though with GPT 4 at its core, BingChat is very similar to ChatGPT.
Both chatbots are exceptionally easy to use, are freely available, and aim to make our lives and online searches slightly easier. So, let’s compare the two chat tools and see which one you should use.
Google Bard vs Bing Chat: Similarities and differences
| Google Bard | Bing Chat | |
| Base | LaMDA | GPT 4 |
| Accessibility | Browser based | All mobile platforms |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| Image generator | No (Coming in a future update) | Integrated AI image generator |
| Internet access | Yes | Yes |
| Information access | Up-to-date | Up-to-date |
Google Bard is designed to offer human-like responses. Bing Chat, which runs on OpenAI’s GPT 4, has a warm yet professional tone. While this doesn’t improve the product’s overall functionality, chatting with Google Bard makes you feel like you’re talking to a human being.
Accessibility
Bing AI Chat has been introduced as an extension to the Bing search engine. Bing Chat is available for free and doesn’t require you to download a dedicated application. It works with the latest version of the Microsoft Edge browser on computers and mobiles. You can also access Bing Chat via the Bing search app on Android and iOS-powered phones.
Currently, Google Bard can be accessed via a website on any browser and is platform agnostic. To access Bard, you need to log in with your Google account. Initially, it was limited to personal Google account users but is now open to Enterprise users.
Pricing
Both Google Bard and Bing Chat are free, and unlike ChatGPT Plus, there is no premium tier. Both Google and Microsoft earn revenue from advertisements and are most likely to keep offering their chatbots without any future charge.
Language model
Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA, is the underlying technology for Google’s conversational chatbot. This has been developed internally by the search engine giant under the Transformer research project. On the other hand, Bing Chat uses GPT 4, the latest and most powerful language model released by OpenAI.
While they might sound different, LaMDA and GPT 4 have natural language programming or NLP as their foundation.
Relevance of information
Google Bard and Bing Chat can access the web and are trained to offer the latest online information. While the free tier of Chat GPT used GPT 3.5, which has a knowledge cutoff date up to September 2021, Microsoft has trained Bing Chat to browse the internet to scout the latest online data.
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In our simple tests, Google Bard failed to offer correct information about some topics and cooked up an incorrect and unique response to sporting events. Conversely, Bing Chat came up with accurate results for the same questions. However, it was seen scouring information from lesser-known websites with low authority. This means there is a strong possibility that the data that Bing Chat comes up with could also be inaccurate.
Usage limits
Google Bard is still in its beta phase and does not have any limits on the number of questions you can ask. It doesn’t have any paid tier as well. Bing Chat is also available for free. However, it does have a soft limit in place. It allows users to initiate 20 chats per session and 200 daily chats.
Image generator
Besides GPT 4, Microsoft has also embedded Dall-E-2, OpenAI’s AI-powered image generator, into Bing Chat. This allows users to ask the chatbot to generate AI images within the chat window. Google Bard is not able to create AI images as of now. However, the company teased this feature during the launch of Bard, which means that it could be introduced in one of the future updates.
Alternate prompts
Google Bard accepts input as voice prompts on computers and phones, while Bing Chat accepts text-based inputs only. Google had also teased image prompts as one of the upcoming features for Bard; however, there is no clarity if Bing Chat will support image inputs.
Google Bard vs Bing Chat: Way more than just chatbots
Both Google Bard and Bing Chat will be more powerful and complete products than chatbots. Microsoft and Google will use them to change how you perform online searches. While Bing Chat can already dish out reasonably correct search information, Google Bard still has some way to go.
Moreover, both these companies have a vast ecosystem of products for enterprises and consumers alike, which can use these intelligent AI tools. Microsoft is already using Bing Chat in applications like Skype and Teams. It will soon be integrated into the Microsoft Office suite.
Bard will be used in Gmail to automate and simplify the email creation process; you can draft responses to lengthy and complicated emails using a simple prompt. Similarly, it will be handy in other tools like Google Search, Maps and GSuite. However, it currently seems like a rushed product with many rough edges and ends up offering blatantly incorrect responses.
In its current form, Bing Chat is a more complete product that not only offers you relevant and correct information but also gives you a bunch of options to help customize the responses as per your requirements.
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