Websites can choose to opt out of Google Bard and future AI models

Websites can now choose to opt out of Google Bard or any other future AI models that Google makes.

Google made the announcement on Thursday introducing a new tool called Google-Extended that will allow sites to be indexed by crawlers (or a bot creating entries for search engines), while simultaneously not having their data accessed to train future AI models.

For website administrators, this will be an easy fix, available through robots.txt – or the text file that allows web crawlers to access sites. In a statement, the company's VP of Trust Danielle Romain said that Google has learned from web publishers "that they want greater choice and control over how their content is used for emerging generative AI use cases."

"By using Google-Extended to control access to content on a site, a website administrator can choose whether to help these AI models become more accurate and capable over time," Romain added.

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, recently launched a web crawler of its own, but included instructions on how to block it. Publications like Medium, the New York Times, CNN and Reuters have notably done so.

Google's Bard came as a swift competitor to ChatGPT, but has been met with problems including leaks and false results. Still, the AI model has improved since its launch, most recently announcing a slew of extensions and more ways to use Bard effectively.