When it comes to search engines, Google continues to capture the lion’s share of the market. Bing, Microsoft’s own search engine, has been out of contention for quite a while, which has prompted the Redmond-headquartered tech titan to regain a foothold in the Search and browser market. This is where ChatGPT – the chatbot that turned heads worldwide in a matter of months – comes in, and now, the Satya Nadella-led company unveiled its search engine and browser powered by the chatbot “to deliver better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to generate content.”
In the surprise event on Tuesday, the company introduced the new, smarter Bing, adding that it is now available to a limited number of users. For now, it is restricted to desktops, and Microsoft promised to scale the desktop preview to “millions” and bring it to smartphones in the “coming weeks.” But the surprising thing is that Microsoft claims that the new Bing features a new next-generation large language model that is “much more powerful” than ChatGPT and designed specifically to excel at search. Will it give Microsoft the “edge” over Google and provide the search engine with a new lease on life (which it desperately needs)? From the looks of it (andcounting on the flurry of AAI activity in the past few months), Microsoft certainly believes so.
“AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the largest category of all – search,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “Today, we’re launching Bing and Edge powered by AI copilot and chat, to help people get more from search and the web.”
“The new Bing can generate content such as writing an email, creating a 5-day itinerary for a dream vacation, with links to book your travel and accommodations, prep for a job interview, or create a quiz for trivia night. The new Bing also cites all its sources, so you’re able to see links to the web content it references,” Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer of Microsoft explained in a blog post.
Speaking more about the capabilities of the smarter Bing, we find that it provides more relevant results and a new sidebar for more comprehensive answers. And the answers you will receive will be comprehensive – if you ask for help while baking, the new Bing and Microsoft Edge will provide you with detailed instructions for how to substitute eggs for another ingredient in a cake you are baking, saving you the trouble of scrolling through multiple results.
Leveraging the success of ChatGPT, the new Bing offers an interactive chat experience, while Edge now sports a Chat and compose feature for more complex searches. This allows users to redefine their search until they get exactly what they are looking for, and moreover, Bing will now generate the content that they need for purposes beyond a simple answer. In this, it takes a page out of ChatGPT’s book by helping users write emails or itineraries for vacations (complete with links to book their travel and accommodations), and even prepare for interviews. With the Chat function, users can ask Edge to help them compose content by providing a few prompts.
