Microsoft has revolutionised its Bing search engine and Edge browser by launching an AI-powered experience with ChatGPT features.
The tech giant has designed the platforms to deliver better search results, more complete answers, a new chat experience, and the ability to generate content.
According to Microsoft, there are 10 billion search queries every day. Still, the company believes that half of them go unanswered as people use search engines to do things that the software wasn’t originally designed to do.
Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, commented: “AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the most extensive variety of all – search.
“Today, we’re launching Bing and Edge powered by AI copilot and chat to help people get more from search and the web.”
AI-Powered Search
Microsoft has revealed that the new Bing experience will be full of AI technology to help improve the search engine for users.
The official Microsoft 365 blog states it will include the following:
- OpenAI model: The new Bing is running on a new, next-generation OpenAI large language model that is more powerful than ChatGPT and customised specifically for search capabilities. Microsoft says it takes learnings and advantages from ChatGPT and GPT-3.5; however, it is fast, more accurate and more capable.
- Microsoft Prometheus model: The company has developed a proprietary way of working with the OpenAI model that allows it to leverage its power best and has called it the Prometheus model. The combination is designed to give users more relevant, timely, and targeted search results.
- AI within the search algorithm: Microsoft has added its AI model to the core Bing search ranking engine, which led to the most significant rise in relevance in two decades. The AI model allows even basic search queries to be more accurate and relevant.
- User experience: Microsoft has reimagined how users interact with search, browser and chat by pulling them into a unified experience. This is designed to unlock a new way of interacting with the web.
Microsoft says these new search experiences are possible because it has committed to building Azure into an AI supercomputer for the world.
It is the same infrastructure that OpenAI has used to train the breakthrough models that are now being optimised for Bing.
“Copilot for the Web”
Microsoft is describing the reimagined Bing and Edge browser as a user’s “copilot for the web”, given the unified experience that it provides.
The company states that this experience delivers the following:
- Better search: The AI-powered search provides more relevant results for things like sports scores, stock prices, the weather, and more, along with a new sidebar that shows more comprehensive answers if users want them.
- Complete answers: Microsoft states that Bing reviews results from across the web to find and summarise the answer a user is looking for.
- New chat experience: Microsoft has introduced a new chat experience for more complex searches, such as planning a detailed trip itinerary. The chat experience is designed to refine a user’s search until they get the answer they want.
- Content creation: The new Bing search engine can generate content for users, such as writing an email, prepping for a job interview, creating a quiz, and more. Bing will also cite all its source so users can see links to the web content it references.
- New Microsoft Edge experience: Microsoft has updated its Edge browser with new AI capabilities and a new look, along with two new functionalities, chat and compose. The Edge Sidebar can summarise a lengthy financial report to get the key takeaways and then use the chat function to ask for a comparison to a competing company’s financials. Edge can also help compose content, such as a LinkedIn post, by giving a few prompts to get users started. Advantage can also understand the web page a user is on and adapt the tone of the content accordingly.
Microsoft and OpenAI
At the end of last month, Microsoft revealed it was extending its long-term partnership with OpenAI through a multi-billion dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs.
The company’s partnership with the ChatGPT creator has already been in place since 2019 and will continue its multiyear deal as the organisations look to share AI technology with the world.
The partnership extension ensured that Microsoft would be the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI, Microsoft would deploy OpenAI models to its customer base, and Microsoft will increase investments into OpenAI’s independent AI research.
Customers gained a first look at how this partnership might look going forward as Microsoft launched its Teams Premium licence, which includes features that OpenAI powers.
The newest licence is designed to offer customers familiar meeting solutions, webinars, virtual appointments, meeting intelligence, and more, which are often add-on products.
Nicole Herskowitz, Vice President of Microsoft Teams, said:
“Built on the familiar, all-in-one collaborative experience of Microsoft Teams, Teams Premium brings the latest technologies, including Large Language Models powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, to make meetings more intelligent, personalised, and protected—whether it’s one-on-one, large meetings, virtual appointments, or webinars.”
Recognising AI’s capabilities to bring to a platform, Google announced it would release its long-awaited Generative AI chatbot, calling it ‘Bard’ due to its storytelling capabilities.
Based on previous work with LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), the chatbot has been widely seen as a response to Microsoft’s ChatGPT activity since December.
Limited Preview
Microsoft has confirmed that the new Bing is available for users to try in a limited preview on a desktop.
Users can try sample queries and sign up for the waitlist for the full release, with a mobile experience also set to be in preview soon.
