The war on artificial intelligence has exploded: Google and its Bard bot announced yesterday, and Microsoft’s response today, as widely expected. In Redmond, CEO Satya Nadella launched a new version of the Bing search engine, which uses an updated version of the same technology underlying ChatGPT. It will be paired with a completely revamped version of its Edge browser, and together they will provide a new experience for browsing the web and searching for online information.
The “new Bing,” as Microsoft calls it, offers a chat feature where users can ask questions and receive answers in natural language. The feature uses an updated version of the OpenAI-built AI language model that underpins ChatGPT – known as the “Prometheus Model” – which offers more up-to-date information with annotated responses.
“It’s a new day for search,” Nadella said, noting that the search paradigm hasn’t actually changed in the last 20 years: so much so that about half of searches don’t really answer users’ questions. According to Microsoft, conversational AI can change that by delivering information more smoothly and faster.
Microsoft missed the move to mobile computing with the iPhone and its Bing search engine is far behind Google in popularity (8.5% on desktop, 9.8% on mobile). But it could be the first major company to truly leverage the next big thing in technology, if chatbots deliver on their promise.
Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s corporate vice president & consumer chief marketing officer, used the new conversational interface to look for a 65-inch OLED TV suitable for gaming. As Bing listed the TVs, he asked to narrow the list down to the cheapest models, and the search engine quickly did so.
He then used the chatbot to plan a vacation to Mexico and research Japanese poets. She also asked the system to translate the results from Spanish to English and to display a particular haiku poem.
“Our intention is to bring ChatGPT to all browsers,” Mehdi said. “We’re starting with Edge. Chrome needs to implement a few things to make it work, but our intention is to bring all browsers.”
(news being updated)