Google has announced ‘Google-Extended,’ a novel control mechanism designed to enable web publishers to manage how their content contributes to the improvement of Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs, including forthcoming iterations of these AI models.

The announcement was made on Thursday, September 28, on Google’s official blog site.

Danielle Romain, VP of trust at Google, said: “Over the years advances in AI have enhanced our products, benefiting the people who use them, web content creators, and the overall web ecosystem. The rapid growth and development of generative AI tools is helping web publishers connect with their audiences more easily and creatively than ever before.”

Romain explained that as AI technologies have continued to evolve, web publishers have expressed a growing need for enhanced choice and control over how their content is utilised. Responding to these concerns, Google has unveiled the Google-Extended control as a solution.

With Google-Extended, website administrators will have the autonomy to determine whether their websites contribute to the ongoing refinement and enhancement of Bard and Vertex AI generative models. This control empowers publishers to make informed decisions about how their content influences AI models’ accuracy and capabilities.

One notable aspect of this announcement is the integration of Google-Extended with robots.txt, a standard protocol used by websites to communicate with web crawlers and other automated agents. By incorporating these controls into robots.txt, Google aims to provide greater transparency and accessibility to web publishers, setting a precedent for responsible AI model management.