Microsoft celebrated six months of its AI-powered Bing search engine by announcing a significant development: Bing Chat would soon be accessible on third-party browsers, extending its reach to web and mobile platforms.
Achievements and Growth
Microsoft highlighted its milestones, revealing that over 1 billion chats and 750 million images have enriched the Bing ecosystem. The Edge browser has also seen consistent growth over nine consecutive quarters.
This progress positions Microsoft to enhance its AI offerings for users across the web. The company also provided insights into its upcoming six-month roadmap as follows:
Third-Party Browser Support
Microsoft introduced expanded accessibility to Bing’s AI features in third-party browsers on both web and mobile platforms. This advancement opens the door to a wider audience, showcasing Bing’s valuable capabilities such as summarized answers and image interactions.
Microsoft aims to continually refine these experiences to cater to various browser preferences. While optimal performance remains with the Microsoft Edge browser, Bing Chat can also be enjoyed in other browsers.
Multimodal Visual Search in Chat
Bing Chat now integrates OpenAI models, allowing users to engage with images and prompt related questions. This feature demonstrates Bing Chat’s contextual understanding and image interpretation skills.
For instance, users can inquire about architectural details of a building captured in a photo or seek meal ideas from a snapshot of their fridge’s contents.
Dark Mode
Dark mode, a sought-after feature, has been introduced to both Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise across desktop browsers and the mobile app.
Bing Chat Enterprise
Microsoft introduced Bing Chat Enterprise, catering to organizations by infusing AI capabilities into work-related conversations. This feature offers verified answers, citations, and commercial data protection, ensuring sensitive information remains within the organization’s confines.
With Bing Chat Enterprise, data integrity is preserved, addressing concerns faced by companies like Apple, Samsung, Walmart, and major banks.
Bing Chat plug-ins
Microsoft has stated that they are diligently working on developing new experiences, such as Bing Chat plug-ins, while also improving upon existing ones.
Availability
Although a precise launch date for third-party browser compatibility wasn’t provided, Microsoft assured users that the feature would be available soon, indicating a forthcoming expansion of Bing’s capabilities.
Announcing the updates, the Bing Team posted:
We are thrilled by the progress we have made in the past six months, but even more excited for what is to come in the next six months. Feedback is a source of inspiration for us and helps us ensure that we are building an AI-powered search that delivers helpful and delightful features. So please, keep the feedback coming!