San Francisco: World was curioulsy waiting for Microsoft to launch Bing integrated with its now popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. However, the tech giant came with a lot more and rolled-out Bing and Edge with AI tool which is more powerful than ChatGPT.
The new Bing and Edge were rolled out for users Tuesday a day after Google opened to selected testers its AI powered “Bard”.
It also comes close on the heels of the launch of “Poe” – the AI powered chatbot released yesterday by popular question and answer site Quora.
“It’s a new day in search. It’s a new paradigm in search. In fact, the race starts today in terms of what you can expect.”
“We are going to move. We are going to move fast and for us every day we want to bring out new things and most importantly we want to have a lot of fun in search”, a beaming Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, said at the launch event Tuesday.
"Today, we’re launching Bing and Edge powered by AI copilot and chat, to help people get more from search and the web", Nadella said.
“Bing and Edge + AI: A new way to search starts today”, Nadella wrote in another Twitter post soon after the launch.
"Microsoft just announced its new Bing with OpenAI integration - using a model more powerful than ChatGPT", Karen X. Cheng, Director AI & Augmented Reality and an influencer, said in a Twitter post.
With the launch of new Bing and Edge, Microsoft eyes to regain a foothold in the Search and Browser market after the decline of Internet Explorer which was once a compulsory part of every computer.
Microsoft has brought together search, browsing and chat into one unified experience. While it will provide quick sports scores, stock prices and weather, users can use a new sidebar for more comprehensive answers on the topic.
Today we previewed the new Bing and Edge powered by AI. @SatyaNadella shares why and how we’re innovating in AI, starting with the largest software category – search. pic.twitter.com/sN4zbHHa6X— Microsoft (@Microsoft) February 7, 2023
Today we previewed the new Bing and Edge powered by AI. @SatyaNadella shares why and how we’re innovating in AI, starting with the largest software category – search. pic.twitter.com/sN4zbHHa6X
The new Bing is available from today to a limited number of people, that too on desktop only. It promises to scale the desktop preview to “millions” and a mobile experience in the “coming weeks”.
Things about the new launch will become clearer in days to come as earlier reports had claimed that Microsoft also planned to integrate AI tools in MS Word and Outlook.
"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 explains in a blog post.
"We’ve updated the Edge browser with new AI capabilities and a new look, adding two new functionalities: Chat and Compose", Mehdi wrote.
"With the Edge Sidebar, you can ask for a summary of 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 and automatically put it in a table."
"You can also ask Edge to help you compose content, such as a LinkedIn post, by giving it a few prompts to get you started. After that, you can ask it to help you update the tone, format and length of the post. Edge can understand the web page you’re on and adapts accordingly", he wrote.
The updated search engine is powered by a new, next-generation OpenAI large language model that is more powerful than ChatGPT.
"It takes key learnings and advancements from ChatGPT and GPT-3.5-- and it is even faster, more accurate and more capable," Microsoft said.
The chat experience gives users the power to narrow their search until they get the complete answer they are looking for.
Microsoft once dominated the browser landscape with its Internet Explorer. Then Google with Chrome web browser in 2008, which offered better performance and features and gradually captured the 2/3rd market. Other players like Firefox also came and occupy some market share.
Microsoft then launched in 2020 Edge using the same Chromium engine as Google's Chrome with extra features and a modern user interface. Ever since it has been aggressive in its attempts to push Edge and regain the Browser market share from Google. It has taken a different stance on web tracking than Google though.
Market experts however feel that the path for Microsoft to regains its lost glory is not easy.
"While they operate in the same Android space, the gap between Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome remains huge. Google won’t fall from the top spot any time soon", experts say.
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