Google may change the name of the Bard-powered Assistant to Gemini. Codes found in the Google app show that the name “Bard” can be ignored in the virtual assistant’s makeover. Gemini is the company’s large language model (LLM) used to power its generative AI Bard.
In October, Google revealed its plans to launch Google Assistant with Bard — the first step toward shutting down the old assistant. This would be the new branding of the feature present in Android smartphones. Already last week (of this infinite January), the codes of version 15.2 of the Google app indicated that the assistant would be renamed to Bard only. Still without a release date, it seems that Google has not yet decided on a name.
The Gemini name for the Bard-powered Assistant was discovered in version 15.4 of the beta version of the Google app. As 9to5Google explains, all references to Bard in the app’s code have been swapped to Gemini.
Doing the “magic” of programming and code mining, the site’s team was able to view the screens with the new name. The funny thing is that Gemini, which uses the Gemini LLM, will continue to be called with “Hey Google”. If Google chooses to change the name of your LLM in the future, the assistant’s name will lose its reference.
It is likely that at the official launch of the Gemini Assistant, the date of which has not yet been revealed, Google will present the justification of the name. To compare, ChatGPT uses LLM GPT: GPT-3.5 in the free version and GPT-4 in the paid version. Bard is generative AI, and Gemini is the name of its engine.
This name change may indicate that Google wants to differentiate the products. Bard will be the generative AI for search, while Gemini will be the AI assistant for mobile devices. In my two cents on the topic, not choosing Bard would take away from the assistant’s identity a bit.
