Google's Bard AI Chatbot Launch in EU Delayed Amid Privacy Concerns; What's the New Roll-out Date?

Google's plan to roll out Bard, its AI chatbot, throughout the European Union (EU) has been blocked after the Irish Data Protection Commission, the company's primary data regulator in the region, voiced privacy concerns.

On Tuesday, the commission said Google's generative AI tool's privacy protection safeguards were insufficient to support its EU debut under the GDPR, Politico reported.

According to Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle, Google alerted the Data Protection Commission of its plan to release Bard in the EU this week. The regulator, however, had yet to be given a thorough explanation or access to a data protection impact assessment or any other supporting materials demonstrating Bard's adherence to EU data protection laws.

In response, the Irish regulator has asked Google to promptly respond to new concerns and thoroughly evaluate Bard's compliance with data protection laws. Due to this, Bard's EU debut, which was previously planned for this week, has been pushed back.

When is Bard's New EU Launch?

The Irish authority is presently investigating the Google Bard situation and will promptly alert other European data authorities of any relevant information.

The precise date on which Bard will debut in the EU is still up in the air. Notably, the research preview for a comparable large language model (LLM), such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, has not been limited to European users for several months.

Other EU Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) have previously noted some data protection issues with ChatGPT in the context of Google's complaint; these issues may also apply to Bard. These issues include the legitimacy of using users' data to train LLM AI models, observing transparency requirements imposed by local privacy laws, resolving AI-generated misinformation, safeguarding the safety of children, and giving EU citizens access rights to their data, according to TechCrunch.

Google has introduced its own AI chatbot as a rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing Chat amid fierce rivalry in the AI business. The Google chatbot's launch started in March and included 180 nations, including the US and the UK.

Poll: Users Prefer ChatGPT To Bard

Meanwhile, a recent poll by Morgan Stanley found that ChatGPT and Bard, two AI chatbots, were used surprisingly low. The survey, which had 2,000 participants and was performed in April, focused on AI adoption and people's readiness to employ new AI technologies.

According to the results, only 19% of respondents had used ChatGPT, while only 9% had used Google Bard. The majority of respondents who still needed to utilize chatbots reported a reluctance to start doing so in the next six months, per a EuroNews report.

These survey results are unexpected, given ChatGPT's user base's fast expansion and widespread interest in AI chatbots like Bard. The survey's pie chart also showed that respondents preferred ChatGPT to Bard, with 4% choosing it daily versus only 1% choosing Bard.

Morgan Stanley analysts ascribed the unusually low interaction with chatbots to the fact that these technologies are still in the early phases of development.