Microsoft announced that the next version of the Bing search engine will be powered by OpenAIso as to take full advantage of the artificial intelligence of ChatGPT. A new version of the Edge web browser will use OpenAI chats in a window, which will deliver conversational results as well as showing you related web pages. A challenge to dominance of Google in search – another area of confrontation between the two companies.
Bing will integrate ChatGPT, Microsoft explains why
Microsoft has invited the American press to its headquarters Redmond, to herald what may be the next generation of web search. The presentation has shown how OpenAI on Bing and Edge could boost productivity of the events. As told by The Verge, artificial intelligence has been able to demonstrate this to journalists by creating a travel itinerary, publishing posts on LinkedIn and rewriting the code of an app in a different programming language.
“It’s a new day for search,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who thinks that although the paradigm for searching the web hasn’t changed in decades, AI can deliver information more smoothly and quickly than current methods. “The race starts today and we will move fast,” said Nadella. “More importantly, we want to have fun innovating again in researchbecause the time has come.”
A new search engine – and new features
In the demos, Microsoft showed “the new Bing” that works in various modes. One possibility, for example, is to show irTraditional search results paired with AI annotations. The other mode provides users talk directly to the Bing chatbot, asking him questions in a chat interface rather similar to ChatGPT.
Microsoft then tried to query Bing for recipes, travel tips and Ikea furniture purchases. The discursive answer helps to understand how plan a trip itinerary or prepare a dessert, while also showing the articles consulted to get the answers.
The big advantage over ChatGPT is that the new Bing can also fetch news about recent events. Indeed, the search engine even knew answer questions about your pitch, citing stories published by online newspapers as journalists tested the chatbot.
Online search challenge: Bing with ChatGPT and Google with Bard
Microsoft explained uses an updated version of GPT 3.5, the OpenAI AI language model that powers ChatGPT. Microsoft calls it “Prometheus Model“, a mythological name to define this more powerful version of GPT 3.5, capable of better answering search queries with updated information and annotated sources. Two essential elements for a search engine, absent from ChatGPT.
For now, however, the rollout is still very limited. The new Bing is available today for a “limited desktop preview.” However, users will only be able to ask one of several pre-set queries as well get the same results every time. There is also a waiting list to register for full access in the future.
This rushed announcement, which follows Google Bard’s announcement to respond to the challenge, demonstrates that both Microsoft and Google are speeding up the time to get people talking about this novelty. A sign that the challenge for search engines has just begun – but also that both companies are betting a lot on this sector.
The other OpenAI news for Microsoft Edge
In addition to the new Bing, Microsoft is rolling out two new AI-powered features of ChatGPT for its Edge browser: “chat” and “dial”. Both will be incorporated into Edge’s sidebar.
“Chat” will summarize the contents of a web page or a document they are visiting. In addition, they will be able to ask questions about what is written. Instead the function “compose” acts as a writing assistant: can help generate text, from emails to social media posts, based on a few initial suggestions.
These two features add useful tools when online, replacing other services and plug-ins that did similar things. But it seems that the most important challenge Google and Microsoft play on research.
An area on which there will be some reflection, especially considering the tendency of some chatbots to present false or inaccurate information as true. This acceleration to compete between Google and Microsoft is likely to exacerbate the problem. However, Microsoft promises to take this seriously (as Google said in Bard’s presentation yesterday). “With this product, we have gone further than ever before to develop measured approaches to risk mitigation“said Sarah Bird, head of AI for Azure.
However, on the Bing page with ChatGPT Microsoft added a disclaimer: “Let’s learn together. Bing is powered by artificial intelligence, so surprises and mistakes are possible. Be sure to check the facts and share feedback so we can learn and improve!”
A piece of advice that, with AI becoming more and more used to create and search for content, becomes fundamental.