Initial Thoughts on Bard: Google's Response to ChatGPT

When ChatGPT introduced a revolutionary new way to perform searches and gather info online, we all wondered the same thing:

What will Google do next?

Google stepped up to the challenge and rolled out its own artificial intelligence-powered chatbot dubbed Bard, giving select testers a preview before it rolls out to the public.

This experimental chatbot is powered by the LaMDA large language model (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a family of conversational large language models developed by Google.

You can ask Bard a question or give it a prompt, and it instantaneously performs text-based tasks to put together a relevant answer or summary.

Although AI and Bard will surely keep evolving, we took a test drive as one of their “testers” and put together some initial thoughts.

Bard Is Detailed, But Not Comprehensive

Bard quickly spits out some suggestions and ideas on the fly, and sounds like a human wrote them, but just doesn’t go very deep.

One of the primary features of AI is to learn what you’re interested in to give you more accurate information and experiences.

Yet after performing several similar searches on “multifamily marketing ideas” and trying to give it feedback, I found it was still spitting back pretty basic info.

Bard gives some solid groundwork to start from, but we don’t see it as being comprehensive enough to dig into in-depth strategies.

Bard Isn’t Transparent

When you’re writing about marketing and dissecting concepts, you want to know where the data actually comes from. It’s ultimately what builds transparency and trust in this business.

Yet Bard sent back some detailed marketing speak with nothing to back it up with. Huh?

We asked Bard where the statistics came from, and it responded:

“The statistics on multifamily marketing come from a variety of sources, including:

• Industry surveys. These surveys are conducted by professional organizations such as the National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Apartment Association.
• Data from marketing companies. These companies track the performance of multifamily marketing campaigns and provide data on the effectiveness of different marketing channels.
• Case studies. These case studies document the success of specific multifamily marketing campaigns.

The statistics on multifamily marketing are valuable because they provide insights into the effectiveness of different marketing strategies. By using these statistics, property owners can make informed decisions about how to market their property.”

Meh. When we’re sourcing data, we want to know where the information and data actually comes from and is:

👉 Accurate

👉 Relevant to my specific needs

👉 Up to date - Some info may be repurposed into an article for 2023, yet the data itself could be five years old and not helpful.

In other queries we gave Bard, it actually notated where the source came from. Why this time and not others? We’re not sure.

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Bard Doesn’t Know What to Do About Graphics and Videos

To date, there doesn’t seem to be any way Bard can handle requests regarding graphics or videos.

Here’s what happened when we asked it to show us multifamily graphics or videos.

The results are best described as a rough draft with placeholders that you forgot to take out before a meeting.

It’s Like Bard Is Trying to Get Rid Of Us

We noticed that when we would ask Bard for something like “give us multifamily marketing ideas,” it’s as if it was trying to get rid of us:

Instead of giving us more options or highly relevant info or something deeper on multifamily marketing funnels, it prompted us to search for related topics, ultimately taking us back to Google.

Bard doesn't seem to really care if we stay on Bard or not or continue using its product. We were thinking it would try a little harder or offer more context or reason to stick around.

Beyond trying to prompt a Google search as quickly as possible, Bard is also telling us it may not be reliable or even downright offensive.

But don’t worry; Bard is persistent in telling us it doesn’t necessarily represent Google’s views. We wonder if its AI sensibilities would pick-up on our tongue-in-cheek statement.

It’s true any Google search could also be made up of the wild musings of the Internet.

The difference? Google usually does a decent job of showing highly relevant, reputable information that we can generally count on as being pretty solid.

Bard? Not so much.

Bard Is Super User-Friendly

There is an upside to the AI search platform. As you would expect from any Google product, Bard is fast and user-friendly. It checks all the boxes for:

✅ Clean interface

✅ Formatted text that's easy to scan

✅ Easy to edit and keep track of your search queries to compare

Bard feels like using Google in terms of its interface and how easy it is to find everything. Unless you’ve barely used the Internet in your life, you’ll understand how Bard works as soon as you log in.

Bard Is Pretty Underwhelming

Here’s the thing. Bard seems to work okay, especially for fast round-ups of simple and straightforward info.

But you can get better results from a traditional Google search, which seems to understand what we want with more detailed and comprehensive info.

So why not just use Google? Until Bard evolves and provides more comprehensive data that we actually want, we’ll just stick with Google.

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