Yesterday Microsoft introduced a new version of a search engine and their web browser, powered by AI.
Just weeks later after they announced they would invest Billions in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella openly admitted that they want Google to participate in this; I quote, “I hope that with our innovation, Google will want to show if they are capable of dancing; I want people to know that we made them dance.”
Google has been dominating the 90% of the search engine market; therefore, AI has been considered an open window of opportunity for Bing, as they are the only direct competitor of Google with close to 9% of the search engine market.
According to Bing, the tools act as an AI copilot for the web.
But what exactly does that mean?
New Bing and Microsoft Edge powered by chatGPT
Microsoft is using conversational AI to invent a new way to browse the web.
This new AI-powered Bing includes four (4) main features:
- Search
- Answer
- Chat
- Create
This post will walk through these four (4) features.
Unlike chatGPT, the new bing is up-to-date and can retrieve data about recent events. Surprisingly, the search engine was able to share information about its launch.
These features are all powered by an upgraded version of chatGPT 3.5; Microsoft named this “Prometheus Model” and claimed it’s more potent than chatGPT.
This new Bing is only available for a limited desktop preview; there is a waitlist to sign up for full access in the upcoming months.
How does AI-powered Bing work?
There are additional things that Bing can do.
On the new Bing, after you search for a particular topic, you’ll see the web results on the left, and on the right, you will see how they start to compile the answer. It has the ability to highlight these weblinks; it can annotate the results.
The answers and the search will be on one page, saving you time. But, there are more queries that Microsoft presented yesterday.
Let’s pretend you ask a question about events during World-cup. What you will see is that you will get an answer there not only about when the World-cup is played but all the available events will be highlighted as well.
You can ask Bing various ridiculous questions, for example Microsoft Bing pitched a question to its search engine about the “Will the Ikea Klippan loveseat fit into my 2019 Honda Odyssey”, and Bing found the dimensions of the loveseat, the dimensions of the interior space of the car, and made the estimations if it would fit. Bing does not know the answer in some cases, but it can still provide helpful information.
You can also ask Bing about a specific product and it will compare the top three products in that specific industry listing the pros and cons.
Basically, it will save you tons of time.
New Chat Experience with Bing
This new chat is a search engine with its own personal helper to help you refine your query and get exactly what you’re looking for.
According to its creators, this feature will be useful for trip planning and shopping research.
Let’s assume you are looking to buy a PC, and you can click “CHAT” just on the right of the “Search” button and talk to it about a gaming-optimized PC or the best set-up for a gamer and such questions. The Chatbot will come with the best answers, you can even put a thresh-hold on your budget, and it will make recommendations accordingly.
As for trip planning, people go through many things, such as travel times, budget, and visiting places.
The New Bings chatbot will give you answers to long queries, such as “Plan a 7-day trip for my family and me in Rio De Janeiro”, and it will plan your whole trip, breaking it down to day-to-day activities and suggestions for restaurants to eat, recommendations for places to visit and such. You can even ask about the “Best nightclubs around your area”, which will provide you with the best clubs, making it easier for you to plan your trips and save time.
Additionally, you can use this Bing’s chatbot the same way people use ChatGPT, but the sole difference is that the Prometheus Model will give you the newest information.
The Final Feature of New Bing
The last feature makes it possible for Bing to generate new content becoming your spark of creativity.
You can ask Bing to write an email for your 7-day trip and describe it to your family. Obviously, only some people’s first language is English; therefore, it can translate your email into over 100 languages.
Alongside the new Bing, they also introduced the AI-powered copilot in Microsoft Edge.
They updated Edge with a new look, feel, and AI capabilities. They have also interestingly integrated Bing.
For example, you want to read a report that is too long and might require at least a few hours of your day, but you want to save time to read it thoroughly. You can open up the sidebar, and at the top of the window, you have two features: chat and compose.
You can use the chat to get a summary of the whole text by asking in chat to give you the key takeaways from the page or summarize the most important points of the text. It will provide you immediately with the key points.
Bing can now call out to the web, pull information from outside of this page, bring it into Edge, and compare it with the information on that page, all within Edge. All this in only one single Tab.
You can use the compose feature to feed prompts and prepare your Linkedin posts.
Though, the main issue for both Google and the new Bing is the possibility of these AI-powered tools making mistakes and providing false data as facts.
The digital war is on. So who’s going to make the next move?
