Microsoft barrels ahead with AI plans, opens up Bing Chat preview to everyone
Enlarge / Some of the new additions Microsoft is planning for Bing Chat. (credit: Microsoft)
Today, Microsoft continued its push to integrate generative AI features into all of its products, announcing a range of small updates to its ChatGPT-powered Bing chatbot and moving the product from a closed, invite-only preview to an open preview that anyone can join. This next phase of the "new Bing" comes just three months after Microsoft introduced it and further demonstrates Microsoft's commitment to putting AI features in all of its products as quickly as possible.
The "Open Preview" phase of the New Bing makes the chatbot and other features available to anyone with a Microsoft Account, and it coincides with a push to make the chatbot "more visual." Bing Chat will soon be able to generate charts and graphs as part of its answers, and the Bing Image Creator will be available in all of the 100-plus languages supported by Bing. A new visual search feature will let you search for images by uploading a similar image to Bing Chat first.
Microsoft is also planning to expand the amount of history and context Bing Chat can remember, "moving from single-use chat/search sessions to multi-session productivity experiences with chat history and persistent chats within Edge," writes Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi. This means you'll be able to return to previous chat sessions, chats can stay open while you browse in Edge, and chats will become "more personalized" as Bing Chat "bring[s] context from a previous chat into new conversations." The latter feature will be rolled out "over time" since it's something Microsoft is still "exploring."