File photo of the Microsoft logo | photo credit: Reuters
Microsoft Corp on Tuesday began making available to users ChatGPT, its search engine Bing as well as a host of AI upgrades including cloud services – a massive launch that seeks to narrow the gap with Alphabet Inc’s Google.
Among the major changes is the rollout of live search results from Bing to ChatGPT, its partner OpenAI’s viral chatbot, whose answers were originally limited to information until 2021.
ChatGPT can now pull from Bing web results for paid customers and will soon do so for free users, the company said at its annual Microsoft Build conference.
The company is also expanding so-called plug-ins for Bing, using a standard adopted by OpenAI and allowing businesses to more easily transact with consumers in their search engine.
(For today’s top technology news, subscribe for our tech newsletter Today Cash)
For example, such a tool could help a web surfer looking for dinner ideas with a suggested recipe and ingredients, which can be ordered from Instacart in a single click, Microsoft’s consumer chief marketing officer said. Officer Yusuf Mehdi said.
“It’s a profound change in how people will use the web,” he said in an interview.
Asked whether Microsoft could sell ad placements related to the plug-in, Mehdi said the company hasn’t reached that point, but is “changing the model of how to turn people into customers.”
The updates to Bing are part of Microsoft’s effort to capture the estimated $286 billion market for search advertising globally.
Like Microsoft, Google recently demonstrated a Generative AI upgrade for its search engine, which is learning from past data how to answer open-ended questions where no clear answers exist on the web.
Which updated search engine consumers prefer is unclear, as Google hasn’t rolled out its changes widely yet. However, its standalone competitor to ChatGPT, a chatbot known as Bard, is available and already includes answers informed by Google’s search results.
When asked whether ChatGPT will now replace Microsoft’s Bing, which includes the most recent information from the web, Mehdi said the programs offer different experiences, but with citations to ChatGPT driving traffic, Microsoft is not doing any good. There will be benefits in some way.
New cloud service features include allowing businesses to build plug-ins that connect to Microsoft 365 Copilot, its AI assistant for enterprises.
Microsoft said a plug-in could ask an employee to book travel or explain legal issues with vendor contracts to the AI in plain language. Microsoft aims to let companies more broadly configure their own AI copilots.
The company also said it will make the AI assistant, or Copilot, available as a preview for some users of its wider Windows operating system starting in June. It also announced methods that are helping consumers determine whether AI generated an image or video, similar to the announcement by Google.