You’ll Have to Pay to Use Google’s Best AI
One of the reasons AI has exploded since late 2022 (besides the fact that it’s pretty cool) is that much of it has been free to use. It costs nothing to sign up for ChatGPT or try out Google’s Bard AI bot, meaning anyone can experience the AI hype for themselves.
However, being free doesn’t pay the bills, and AI does . Generative AI requires a lot of computing power , so all the companies behind this technology are looking for ways to finance their activities. ChatGPT has a Plus subscription that gives you access to more features and functionality, and the Midjourney AI generator offers several pricing tiers to choose from.
Now Google has joined this initiative. During its fourth-quarter earnings conference call, the company confirmed that it plans to roll out “Bard Advanced” to subscribers, but did not provide a timeline for that rollout or a price for its service. What we do know is that Bard Advanced will be powered by Gemini Ultra, unlike Bard Gemini Pro.
What is an Advanced Bard?
Google’s AI offerings are starting to get a little complicated, so here’s a quick rundown: Google’s AI bot is called Bard. This is the interface you use when you want to communicate with Google AI, perform generative AI searches, or generate images. Essentially, Bard is Google’s version of ChatGPT.
Gemini, on the other hand, is the driving force behind Bard: it is Google’s LLM (Large Language Model) that has three different layers . Gemini Pro is the level at the heart of the free version of Bard that we have access to today. It seems quite powerful and capable of handling many basic tasks you throw at it. There’s also the Gemini Nano, which brings AI capabilities to the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro .
Bard Advanced, however, works at the third level, Gemini Ultra, the most powerful version of Google LLM. It’s still early days, so we don’t quite know what Gemini Ultra will offer Bard Advanced subscribers over the free version, but Google said Ultra is “designed for highly complex tasks and built to quickly understand and respond to different types of information.” – including text, images, audio, video and code.”
None of this means the free version of Bard is going away. Just as there is a free version of ChatGPT that co-exists with ChatGPT Plus, Bard and Bard Advanced will be offered simultaneously. If you don’t want to pay for a more powerful version of Bard with more features, stick with Google’s original Bard AI.
We’ll update this article once Google releases more information about Bard Advanced deployment and pricing.