As expected – and right when Google just announced BARD – Microsoft is making good on its investment in OpenAI by bringing ChatGPT’s goodness to Bing and to the Edge browser. The company says the new Bing is running on a next-generation OpenAI large language model, which is more powerful than the previous version.
Microsoft says, “We’re excited to announce 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. It takes key learnings and advancements from ChatGPT and GPT-3.5 – and it is even faster, more accurate and more capable.”
Accessing the new Bing and Edge:
We are currently not yet able to see the new Bing. Microsoft says it is available in limited preview on the desktop. People can sign up for the waitlist, though we haven’t as of this writing found how to. We are also waiting for the update for the Edge browser to arrive to test out the new features.
What exactly is new on Bing with ChatGPT?
Microsoft says, the new update is fusing Search, Browsing and Chat into one experience. There will now be the same familiar interface with improved relevant results, plus a new sidebar with more comprehensive answers.
People will be able to directly type things as they would to a person. An example Microsoft has given is:
My anniversary is coming up in September, help me plan a trip somewhere fun in Europe, leaving from London.
Bing will be able to churn out complete answers with results from the web provided in sort of summaries to help you really directly find what you’re looking for.
Users will also be able to just chat to generate ideas for writing, planning or more, or for more complex sort of searches that require that one on one feel that the new AI program supports.
What’s new with Edge?
The new Microsoft Edge comes with an updated look that bakes in AI to the browser. That means users can be able to chat with the AI for things like financials, comparisons etc. You can also have the AI compose things for you including things like LinkedIn posts.
These new features are accessible through a new Edge Sidebar. It will be interesting to see how this works, and if there will be a need for people to go directly to chat.openai.com and suffer the downtimes.
Does this mean the end of Google Search?
Not exactly immediately. The company will still enjoy millions of people using their Assistant and Search Engine. However, the company is obviously in panic mode to the extent of going ahead to announce something we can’t even test yet.
Google has been on the losing side of things for a while now. Remember their attempt to catch up with Social Media giants with Google+? Then their complete mess with messaging? And now they’re playing catch up with AI. If the past is anything to go by, then Google cannot catch up on AI.
Though if you remember, we saw DeepMind so long ago and it seemed quite good. So there may be loads of power Google is sitting on, and they’re only looking for the right way to open it up to the public.
Bing on the other hand has a long way to go into being the default search engine for many people across the world. If they can have a superior search engine, and find ways of being the default engine on many more devices across the world, they probably would win this new AI + search race.
