Microsoft (MSFT) is already leading the generative AI discussion thanks to its partnership with OpenAI and Bing chatbot. And now the company is taking things a step further, rolling out a host of improvements to both Bing and the company’s Edge browser, including opening Bing up to third-party developers.
In a press announcement early Thursday, Microsoft CVP Yusuf Mehdi announced that Bing, which is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology, is now available to the general public as an open preview. In other words, you can now use Bing without first having to sign up for a waitlist as long as you have a Microsoft account.
More important than making Bing available to the general public, though, is word that Microsoft is making it so third-party developers can build their own app plug-ins into the software.
Microsoft is making Bing available to more users, and opening up the chat bot to third-party developers. (Image: Microsoft)
“For example, if you’re researching the latest restaurant for dinner in Bing chat, it will leverage OpenTable to help you find and book a reservation,” Mehdi explained in a statement. “Or, with Wolfram|Alpha, you can create powerful visualizations and get answers to complex science, math, and human-curated data-based questions directly from Bing chat.”
The idea is to make Bing chat a kind of one-stop shop for search, allowing consumers to both ask questions and receive answers via text and images.
Mehdi says Bing is also expanding its existing Bing Image Creator, which is a part of Bing chat, to 100 more languages, opening up the app to far more users than before.
In the future, he says, you’ll also be able to upload images to Bing chat and search for similar content.
In terms of basic capabilities, Bing is also adding the ability to go back to your chat history and pick up where you left off during a previous session. You’ll also be able to export and share your chats to other apps. Microsoft, though, didn’t say which apps outside of Microsoft Word.
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According to Mehdi, Bing users have already taken part in 500 million chats with the bot in the 90 days since it went live. The app now has 100 million users and mobile app downloads have increased 4x.
Still, Bing has just 2.79% global market share as of April, according to StatCounter. Google (GOOG, GOOGL)? 92.6%.
But Microsoft isn’t looking to dethrone the search giant just yet. When discussing the potential for search, the company speaks in terms of market share percentages. When the company debuted Bing in February, Microsoft representatives said that every one percent of market share Bing can take from Google is worth $2 billion in revenue.
With Microsoft continuing to innovate on Bing, and Google’s Bard still in a limited preview, the Windows maker could be backing its rival into a corner.
Google, however, kicks off its annual Google I/O developer conference on May 10. And you can be all but certain the company and CEO Sundar Pichai will have plenty to say about their AI efforts.
Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow him @DanielHowley.
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Originally published May 4, 2023 at 3:00 AM
