ChatGPT vs Google Bard (2023): An in-depth comparison

This is an in-depth comparison of ChatGPT vs Google Bard. Use our guide to learn more about their unique capabilities and differences.

ChatGPT and Google Bard are AI chatbots designed to generate responses to prompts. When used appropriately, ChatGPT and Google Bard can be used to support certain business processes in content production, development and more. Take a look at each tool’s features, pros and cons to see which would be best for your business.

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ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that generates human-like responses based on text input. It has been trained on a huge amount of internet text called a large language model.

Google Bard is another AI chatbot. Like ChatGPT, Google Bard can answer questions and generate text from prompts.

ChatGPT’s basic version is free, with a limit of 100 questions per day. For $20 per month, ChatGPT Plus gives subscribers faster response times, access to new features and access to GPT-4 (the free version is currently using GPT-3.5). Organizations without a contract with OpenAI can get on a waitlist for access to the ChatGPT API.

Google Bard is free, with an unlimited number of questions. Google’s products have often remained free, since the company mostly profits off of advertising.

ChatGPT and Google Bard are useful tools for producing text –– anything from summaries of information to creating a poem to writing an essay. ChatGPT was trained on text from the internet, and Google Bard was trained on a specific dataset for conversations. This leads some to argue that ChatGPT is better at producing paragraphs and summaries and other text-based processing tasks, while Google Bard is better at conversations.

SEE: Discover how to use Google Bard in your brainstorming sessions.

However, since ChatGPT is based on data that was mostly collected up until 2021, it does not have access to the full range of material on the internet as Google Bard does and, therefore, may produce out-of-date responses. For instance, if your business wants to use ChatGPT to learn about Google Bard, ChatGPT is unable to respond.

ChatGPT and Google Bard are trained on datasets that include hundreds of billions of parameters, which results in remarkably human-like responses. Further, GPT-4 has over 100 trillion parameters.

However, since Google Bard was trained on data that has instant access to the internet and a more up-to-date library, it can produce more current responses than ChatGPT’s responses. For instance, if asked “what happened yesterday in Budapest?” Google Bard can give several bullet points of news events, whereas ChatGPT comes up empty.

ChatGPT collects information from previous conversations and prior interactions with the user, which means it can use context when engaging in a chat. Bard is also able to use context in the conversations, and can also pick up where a user left off.

For instance, if you ask: “What do you think about the new employee description I mentioned the other day?” Bard can respond using the previous cues.

SEE: How to use Google Bard (2023): A comprehensive guide

ChatGPT and Google Bard are still in development and may contain errors or biases. Therefore, users should be critical of the information provided by ChatGPT and Google Bard to ensure its accuracy.

In addition, there are privacy concerns that come along with using ChatGPT or Google Bard, which collect personal information in the same way search engines do. Your IP address, text and even links to your information like phone, email and social media can be gathered.

ChatGPT and Google Bard are free — unless you opt for the paid ChatGPT Plus — and both AI chatbots are trained on large natural language models, meaning their responses tend to be similar.

Google Bard has several features that help it stand out. For one, you can get “draft” versions of the response, which offers a variety of responses. Further, Google Bard is completely up-to-date, with access to online information.

ChatGPT, on the other hand, is based on data up to September 2021.

It’s important to remember that both AI chatbots can be prone to error and bias and collect your personal data — not just the information you input — and can be tools of misuse for bad actors. Learn more about how generative AI works along with its benefits and dangers.

We evaluated these products based on the free version of ChatGPT and Google Bard, which is free by default. We tested out how the two AI chatbots would answer the same questions, and we asked ChatGPT and Google Bard about more current news items to test the limitations.

New features from Google make Android phones better wallet replacements

Slowly, surely, smartphones are getting better at replacing the things you've crammed in your wallet. But they haven’t finished the job yet.

That’s partly because not all of the things in your wallet live in a single place on your phone. Consider mine, for example: My San Francisco library card lives in one app, while my health insurance card and credit cards live in others. And then there’s my driver’s license, which — because I live in California — isn’t getting a widespread digital replacement for a while yet.

With some new updates announced this week, Google is trying to give these cards, passes and IDs a centralized home in its Wallet app for Android devices. And in doing so, said Jenny Cheng, Google’s vice president in charge of Wallet, the company is trying to fully “replace all the things you would normally have in your physical wallet.”

There will always be people who wouldn’t dream of leaving their wallets at home — there’s a certain feeling of security knowing that some of your most important cards are safely stowed in your pocket or purse. But if you’re considering a life where leaving your wallet behind doesn’t prompt a quick U-turn home, here’s a quick guide to what’s changing.

Digital versions of driver’s licenses and state IDs have grown more common over the last few years, but they’re still far from ubiquitous. Where they do exist, they’re often built into separate apps developed by individual states and tech partners like IDEMIA. But that hasn’t stopped some of the biggest names in tech from trying to fold those IDs directly into their own apps.

For Google, that starts in Maryland, where all residents will be able to store a digital driver’s license in Google Wallet starting June 1st. There are only two requirements, she says: The feature only works on devices running Android 8.0 or newer, and those devices require a screen lock, like a PIN or fingerprint.

In time, that feature will expand to people who live in Arizona, Colorado and Georgia, though exactly when digital licenses become usable is largely up to each state.

What about iPhone users? Apple announced support for digital driver’s licenses in its Wallet app at the end of 2021, with a slew of states — including Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma and Utah — embracing the company’s approach. More states signaled their support for digital licenses for Apple Wallet in the months that followed, but to date, only a handful (including Maryland) have launched them.

If your library or favorite grocery store’s loyalty program doesn’t offer digital cards — or if you’d prefer to keep them in one place on your phone — you’ll be able to take pictures of their bar codes and QR codes and store them in the Google Wallet app. When this feature launches later this summer, Cheng says, it will work for just about anything that has a bar code. (though we’ll have to try it for ourselves before singing its praises.)

What about iPhone users? While Apple is expected to announce some changes to its Wallet app at its upcoming developer conference, it doesn’t currently let you scan these kinds of cards and passes to import them. Instead, you may want to consider popular apps like Stocard (for loyalty cards) and Barcodes (for anything with, you know, a bar code) as a handy stand-in.

Think things like your proof of health insurance — stuff you wouldn’t want to treat as cavalierly as, say, your Safeway rewards card. Providers that partner with Google will be able to offer digital insurance cards that live behind an extra layer of protection; you’ll have to punch in your PIN or use your fingerprint to prove your identity one more time before you can show it off.

Right now, Cheng says, Humana and the United Kingdom’s tax, payments and customs authority are working on offering these kinds of “private passes.” If your provider doesn’t tap into Google’s developer tools, though, you can’t directly import your existing, physical insurance card into Google Wallet unless it has a bar code — and even then, it wouldn’t offer the same extra level of protection you would from a private pass.

What about iPhone users? There’s no way to use Apple’s Wallet app to directly import these kinds of cards, but certain insurance providers will let you migrate digital versions of those cards into Apple Wallet — you just have to start the process from inside their own app first.

If your provider doesn't offer digital proof of insurance, we'd recommend taking a clear photo of the front and back of the card and saving it in locked note in the Notes app.

To start, open the Notes app, create a new note and tap the camera icon at the bottom of the screen. From there you can “scan” it — once that’s done, tap the menu button in the top-right corner and hit the “Lock” icon that appears to secure it.

For more on migrating almost anything in your wallet, read my colleague Heather Kelly’s handy guide here.

Google demonstrates how Imagen Editor AI can transform images without professional tools

Google's newly launched AI tool dubbed Imagen Editor is capable of recreating pictures in one sentence with the help of generative AI. Notably, the search giant has been sparing no effort to develop AI-backed tools that can edit photos without using professional tools.

Aside from this, Google recently enabled its AI bot Bard to respond with images. Now, Imagen Editor can radically overhaul a photo by erasing people in the background, changing the colour of the sky, and more. This easy-to-use tool is available via Google Photos.

Furthermore, the tool can come up with secondary creations based on existing pictures according to the text entered by a user. However, it is worth noting that the tool does not generate complete image content, Instead, Imagen Editor creates a new picture based on existing images and users' requirements.

Research Engineers at Google Research, Su Wang and Ceslee Montgormery shared an official sample that shows edits done to a photo of a pet dog. The researchers highlighted the body of the dog before entering the description "a red space suit with a star." They then asked the Imagen Editor to add a rocket made of cardboard in the background. Lastly, they added a blue Bluetooth headset using the tool.

As a responsible company, Google acknowledged that it is not fully prepared for security issues. As a result, the American tech giant isn't planning to make the tool available to the public for the time being.

Imagen Editor relies on generative AI to generate images in one sentence. All you need to do to use the tool is to upload a photo to Google Photos and select the Imagen Editor option. Next, describe the changes by entering a sentence and the tool will make those changes.

Imagen Editor, which is a diffusion-based model, requires three inputs from the user. First, the image to be edited, and a binary mask (highlight) that specifies the edit region. Lastly, it requires a text prompt. These inputs guide the output samples. Also, the tool relies on three core techniques to develop superior text-guided image inpainting.

The new AI tool can make changes based on a user's needs, and boasts an impressive array of features. The tool is capable of moving objects in a photo to a different location. For instance, if you have a photo of a person standing in front of a coconut tree, it can move the person further to the side of the tree.

Aside from this, Imagen Editor can erase people in the background. For example, if you have a photo of a person with a lot of buildings in the background, it can erase the buildings to make the person stand out. Moreover, the tool can even change the colour of the sky. For example, if you have a photo of a sunset, Imagen Editor can make the sky blue.

Imagen Editor can take the world of photography by storm since it allows a user to make notable edits to a photo without requiring professional tools. In other words, this tool empowers anyone to make their photos look more professional.

Likewise, professional photographers can take advantage of this tool to save time. Imagen Editor can also help them improve the efficiency of their workflow. On the downside, this kind of tech can be subject to security and legal issues.

Some users can portray a wrong notion by modifying images to mislead the public. So, Google will need to mark the output of Imagen Editor to avoid such cases. Nevertheless, Google's Imagen Editor is a powerful tool when it comes to recreating pictures.

In the meantime, as part of its efforts to keep users safe, Google is reportedly prepping to make the screen recording feature more private with its upcoming mobile OS, Android 14.