Google' Bard AI chatbot is getting a lot more personal.

The chatbot has expanded its capabilities beyond just sourcing answers from the web. It can now search through your Gmail, Docs, and Drive to assist you in finding the information you need.

"What previously required sifting through numerous emails or documents can now be done simply by interacting with Bard," Samanyou Garg, CEO of the generative AI company Writesonic, told Lifewire in an email interview. "This feature can aid users in various tasks, whether creating summaries from complex documents stored in Drive, extracting specific information from numerous emails in Gmail, or even providing real-time updates from Maps or Flights."

A Special Companion

You can prompt Bard to search your Gmail by starting your question with "@mail." Alternatively, you can simply ask, "Look in my email for details about my forthcoming flight."

"For example, if you're planning a trip to the Grand Canyon (a project that takes up many tabs), you can now ask Bard to grab the dates that work for everyone from Gmail, look up real-time flight and hotel information, see Google Maps directions to the airport, and even watch YouTube videos of things to do there—all within one conversation," Yury Pinsky, the director of product management for Bard said in the blog post on the company's website.

Bard's ability to search through your documents could be a game-changer, Emil Åkesson, the chairman at the consulting firm CLC & Partners, said in an email to Lifewire.

"It's not uncommon to have tens of thousands of emails in a single account," he added. "Having an AI assistant instantly provide you access to this using simple prompts will add tremendous value to many users. Imagine not having to search emails or documents manually; Bard will do it for you."

A new feature in Bard aims to address a persistent issue in generative AI: the occurrence of inaccurate replies, commonly referred to as 'hallucinations.' Users can now discern which portions of Bard's responses are consistent with or deviate from Google search results.