Microsoft Opens Bing AI Search Engine To The Public, Does Away With Waitlist
Back in February, Microsoft unveiled its revamped Bing search engine for the first time, promising users an experience fueled by artificial intelligence that would become a “copilot for the web.”
Just a month later, the company announced that the tool surpassed 100 million daily users. A third of the users were new to the search engine, as more were looking for a combination of “search + answers + chat + creation” in one place.
Now, anyone who wants to give the feature a go can do so, as Microsoft is officially opening the new and improved Bing to all users—sans the waitlist. All users can now access the tool as long as they’re signed into the firm’s Edge browser.
As CNN pointed out, it appears the technology giant has decided to press on with the full product despite certain concerns about its accuracy. The publication previously reported on how the chatbot spewed out “aggressive” responses.
Nonetheless, since its debut, the search engine has been used to process over half a billion chats, allowing users to generate everything from summarized responses to queries to planning a travel itinerary or organizing data in a simplified table.
Not to mention, over 200 million images have been generated with the Bing Image Creator, and the number of daily installations of the mobile application has spiked four times since its launch.
The next generation of the platform has more in store as it opens from Limited Preview to Open Preview, moving from text-only search and chat functions to an increasingly visual one with image and video answers.
Soon, Microsoft plans to add multi-modal support into the mix and allow users to go from single chat/search sessions to more productive, multi-session experiences that keep track of chat history within the browser.
“I’m thrilled to share we are moving to the next generation of AI-powered Bing and Edge to transform the largest category of software in the world—search—by greatly expanding the vision and capabilities,” said Yusuf Mehdi, Consumer Chief Marketing Officer.
