Google might rebrand its yet-to-be-launched Assistant with Bard to Gemini.
9to5Google spotted the change in a teardown of the Google app. As with any app teardown, it’s important to take findings with a healthy dose of skepticism. App teardowns involve cracking open an app’s APK file and looking for changes in the code that hint at new features — it’s possible for these changes not to ship or look different from what people predict.
In this case, 9to5 says that several strings referencing Assistant with Bard have changed. Previously, the strings changed from saying ‘Assistant with Bard’ to just ‘Bard,’ but now those same strings say ‘Gemini’ instead.
Moreover, it appears that Gemini/Bard/Assistant with Bard will still be its own thing, with users able to select between Gemini or regular Google Assistant.
Though it’s possible the change won’t stick, if it does, it’s kind of a weird direction for Google to go. Gemini is the name of Google’s new large language model (LLM) and it already comes in a few variants, including Gemini Nano, Pro, and Ultra.
Bard, meanwhile, is the name Google uses for its consumer-facing chatbot that now runs on Gemini (and Bard currently isn’t available in Canada). While I’m not exactly a fan of the Bard name, it made sense for Google to brand its LLM-powered Assistant revamp as using Bard. The move to Gemini branding will likely confuse people, especially since 9to5 spotted that Google’s upcoming Bard subscription, dubbed Bard Advanced, will be renamed to Gemini Advanced. Bard Advanced was set to run on Gemini Ultra, which means with the rebrand, we’re looking at a situation where people use Gemini Advanced running Gemini Ultra. Ugh.
9to5 also brought up an interesting point — if Google brands its AI products with ‘Gemini,’ what happens when Google inevitably launches a newer LLM? Would all the branding change as well? Could we end up in a situation where people are using Gemini 2 Advanced on Gemini 2 Ultra? Who knows, but the whole situation seems rather convoluted.
Header image credit: Google
Source: 9to5Google
