from MARIA MACHARIA in Nairobi, Kenya
Kenya Bureau
NAIROBI, (CAJ News) – SWAHILI is the first African language to be included in Google’s Bard, the conversational artificial intelligence (AI) service.
This brings to 40 the languages on the service.
The expansion includes new features that allow users to better customize their experience and boost their creativity.
With the expansion, Bard is now available in most of the world, including countries in the European Union (EU), and in the most widely spoken languages, including Swahili, Chinese, German, Spanish, Arabic, and Hindi and Spanish.
“We’re excited that this is Bard’s largest expansion to date – we see its global availability as a great democratizer of knowledge,” said Dorothy Ooko, Head of Communications and Public Affairs, Google Sub-Saharan Africa.
Swahili is among the 10 most widely spoken languages in the world, with more than 200 million speakers.
The inclusion of more languages and territories will also help to make Bard more inclusive and safe, through feedback from a wider range of users.
“The launch of Bard in Swahili is a major milestone as it allows Bard to reach even more people in Africa, where approximately 150 million people speak Swahili,” said Rachael Ndichu, Language Manager at Google.
Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of Google’s large language models.
It draws on information from the web to provide responses.
– CAJ News