The battle for search engine supremacy between two of the biggest companies involved, Google and Microsoft, now features an explosive new weapon – artificial intelligence (AI).
A couple of days after Google announced its AI-powered Bard on Google Search, it was the turn of Microsoft to show off their own offering with the launch of its own upgraded and AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser, using OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology.
Calling the tools ‘AI copilot on the web’, Microsoft said it believes the new product will deliver better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to generate content.
Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft, announced: “AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the largest category 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.”
With the new Bing and Edge, Microsoft has brought together search, browsing and chat into one unified experience.
It will lead to better search, providing more relevant results while showing a new sidebar that shows more comprehensive answers if you want and more complete answers. It also brings a new chat experience, which helps users refine their search until they get the complete answer they are looking for by asking for more details, clarity and ideas.
The new Bing can also help generate content. It can help users write an email, create itineraries for a vacation with links to book travel and accommodations, or prepare for a job interview.
The Edge browser has been updated with new AI capabilities and a new look, and features two new functionalities – chat and compose.
The Edge Sidebar can summarise lengthy reports to key takeaways, and can help compose content, such as a LinkedIn post. All it needs is a few prompts to get started, after which the users can update the tone, format and length of the post.
In a blogpost, Microsoft said the new Bing is a culmination of technologies, including next-generation OpenAI model and Microsoft Prometheus model.
Bing is running on a new OpenAI large language model that is more powerful than ChatGPT and customised specifically for search. It takes key learnings and advancements from ChatGPT and GPT-3.5 – and it is even faster, more accurate and more capable.
Microsoft has developed a proprietary way of working with the OpenAI model that allows it to best leverage its power and calls this collection of capabilities and techniques the Prometheus model – which helps generate more relevant, timely and targeted results, with improved safety.
The company said it is working with OpenAI and has been intentional in implementing safeguards to defend against harmful content.
“The work we are doing with OpenAI builds on our company’s yearslong effort to ensure that our AI systems are responsible by design. We will continue to apply the full strength of our responsible AI ecosystem – including researchers, engineers and policy experts – to develop new approaches to mitigate risk,” Microsoft said in the blog.
How to get Microsoft Bing and Edge
Tuesday’s launch is limited to a ‘desktop preview’. Users will need to go to bing.com/new and sign in to a Microsoft account to get on a waitlist to access Bing search.
To jump the line, Microsoft said users can set Bing as the default search engine on their PC and scan a QR code to download the Bing Search app on their phones.
Follow us on
