Microsoft is updating its OpenAI-powered Bing search chatbot with several new features, and expanding its availability beyond the initial limited preview, looking to build on its momentum three months after the initial launch.
Bing has grown to more than 100 million daily active users since Microsoft released the AI chat features, giving Bing new traction against search industry leader Google. The search giant has released a preview of its own AI search chatbot, Bard, and will be holding its annual Google I/O developer conference in California next week.
Here are the main features Microsoft says it’s adding:
- Users will be able to access their chat histories and export chat sessions to make it easier to conduct research and share AI search results without losing the formatting in other applications.
- Bing chat search results will include images, charts, and graphics in addition to plain text.
- Microsoft will add support for third-party apps and services to turn Bing chat into a developer platform. Initial examples include the OpenTable reservation service and WolframAlpha science and math search site.
- The company’s Edge browser, which comes with a Bing AI sidebar, will be redesigned with “a streamlined look, rounded corners, organized containers and semi-transparent visual elements,” said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft consumer chief marketing officer, in a blog post introducing the new Bing chat features.
- Another new feature will make it possible to take specific actions from the Bing sidebar in Edge, such as playing a movie on a streaming service after conducting a related AI search.
- Microsoft says Bing chat in Edge will get better at summarizing long documents.
In previous updates, Microsoft integrated AI image-generation into the Bing chatbot and announced plans to make Bing AI search functionality available from the Windows 11 taskbar.
The company made a series of adjustments and put new limits on Bing search sessions after early users reported bizarre and unsettling experiences when engaged in lengthy conversations with the search chatbot.
With the latest announcement, Microsoft says it’s removing the waitlist for the new Bing and shifting into an open preview, available to anyone who signs into Bing and the Edge browser with a Microsoft account.
The AI-powered Bing chatbot is one of a growing number of Microsoft products that integrate OpenAI’s technology. Microsoft in January extended its OpenAI partnership with a “multiyear, multibillion dollar investment.“
