The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Google is introducing Bard, its artificially intelligent chatbot, to other members of its digital family -- including Gmail, Maps and YouTube -- as it seeks to ward off competitive threats posed by similar technology run by OpenAI and Microsoft. An Associated Press dispatch to The Globe says that Bard's expanded capabilities announced Tuesday will be provided through an English-only extension that will enable users to allow the chatbot to mine information embedded in their Gmail accounts as well as pull directions from Google Maps and find helpful videos on YouTube. The extension will also open a door for Bard to fetch travel information from Google Flights and extract information from documents stored on Google Drive. Google is promising to protect users' privacy, while also promising that the data will not used as part of the main way the Mountain View, Calif., company makes money -- selling ads tailored to people's interests. The expansion is the latest development in an escalating AI battle triggered by the popularity of OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot and Microsoft's push to infuse similar technology in its Bing search engine and its Microsoft 365 suite.