After all of the artificial intelligence-related announcements made by Microsoft and OpenAI at the start of the year, Google finally joined the party with Bard at the beginning of February. After then, in March 2023, the AI-powered chatbot was made accessible for beta testing in some regions via a waitlist. On the other hand, Bard was only available to people who used Gmail daily, as Google’s policy dictates that Workspace account holders should not be included in such events. This is no longer the case, as Google has just opened up the waitlist for Workspace accounts at Bard College.
Google updated Bard’s changelog to reflect the expanded availability of the chatbot for clients using previous versions of G Suite and Workspace. The only exception to this rule is Google Workspace for Education accounts held by students younger than 18 years old. They will not be able to interact with the chatbot in any way.
Take note that for you to access the chatbot if you have a Workspace account, the administrator of the domain must first enable Bard access. And even after that, you must sign up for the waitlist to be considered for approval by Google.
Access for Google Workspace accounts
- What: Google Workspace admins can now enable Bard for their domains, allowing their users to access Bard using their Workspace accounts.
- Why: You can now use Bard to help with work, research, or other business needs, when signed into your administrator-enabled Google Workspace account.
Within the next few days, the option to enable Bard for your domain will become available in the Admin panel of Google Workspace under Apps > Additional Google services > Early Access Apps if you are an administrator of Google Workspace. Even if you cannot play Bard in your region, the option will still be available in the Admin console.
Even though users pay for their Workspace accounts, it is not uncommon for Google to withhold access to its experimental new features from customers who have paid for such accounts. On the other hand, Google is working on integrating Bard AI into further versions of its products, such as Google Messages, although these versions will not have the Bard name. Your experience with messaging should significantly improve as a result of this change.
