Bard is renamed Gemini and Gemini Advanced launches

Two names for one assistant

Bard was the name Google used for its conversational AI assistant. Since 6 December 2023 that assistant had been running a fine-tuned version of Gemini Pro, a model belonging to Google's Gemini family^[2]. For those months the product and the technology under it carried different names: users talked to Bard, while the model doing the work was called Gemini.

What changed on 8 February 2024

On 8 February 2024 Google renamed Bard to Gemini, so that the assistant and the model family behind it shared one name^[1]. The rename came together with a second announcement: Gemini Advanced, a version of the assistant built on Ultra 1.0, which Google described as its largest model^[1]. Gemini Advanced was made available in more than 150 countries and territories, in English at first^[1].

So the change was not only a matter of labels. The most capable model in the family was now something ordinary users could reach, and it arrived under the same name as the assistant itself.

The plan and the apps

Access to Gemini Advanced ran through a new subscription rather than being the default experience. Google offered it through the Google One AI Premium plan at $19.99 a month, which also included 2 TB of storage and came with a two-month free trial^[1]. That placed the top model behind a paid tier while keeping the storage bundle that the Google One service was already known for.

Distribution changed on the same day. Google released a Gemini app for Android and brought Gemini into the Google app on iOS^[1]. The assistant was no longer reachable only through a browser page; it had an icon on the phone and a place inside an app that many people already had installed.

The quality claim

Google also made a comparative claim about the new model. It said that third-party raters, in blind tests, preferred Gemini Advanced with Ultra 1.0 over leading alternative chatbots^[1]. The statement came from Google itself, describing tests it had commissioned from outside evaluators; the company did not present the scores in the announcement.

Why the day mattered

Three things moved at once on 8 February 2024. The product name was folded into the model name, ending the split between what users called the assistant and what Google called the technology^[1]. The largest model in the family was opened to users in more than 150 countries, initially in English^[1]. And the way people reached the assistant widened, from a web page to a dedicated Android app and a place inside the Google app on iOS^[1].

For a general audience, the practical effect was a simpler map of Google's AI offerings: one name, Gemini, covering the assistant, the models and the mobile apps, with a paid tier, Gemini Advanced, sitting on top of it. The previous months had prepared this: because Bard had already been running a fine-tuned Gemini Pro since 6 December 2023, the rename described a state of affairs that had existed for some time rather than introducing an entirely new system^[2].