Microsoft is expanding Bing’s capabilities, centered around AI, to improve visual, personalized, and multimodal search capabilities. Bing Chat will now respond to questions with images where relevant, and the chatbot will present results visually and in the chart type of the user’s choosing. Users will also be able to upload images and search the web for related content, and Bing Chat will store users’ chat histories. Plugins from partners such as OpenTable and Wolfram Alpha will also extend what Bing Chat can do.
Microsoft is expanding the capabilities of its search engine, Bing, and is putting artificial intelligence (AI) at the center of its next phase. Following the launch of Bing Chat, its AI-powered chatbot, the platform has grown to over 100 million daily active users, with visitors having engaged in over half a billion chats and created more than 200 million images. Bing’s new developments focus on improving its visual, personalized, and multimodal search capabilities.
The chatbot will now respond to questions with images where relevant, displaying them in a card-like interface. Bing Chat benefits from the filtering and moderation already in place with Bing Search, with a combination of “toxicity classifiers” and blacklists being used to keep the chat clean. The platform is also working to improve transparency around fact-based responses, with citations included indicating where the information came from in documents. Bing Chat is also getting the ability to create charts and graphs, with the chatbot presenting results visually and in the chart type of the user’s choosing.
Bing is improving its productivity and image search capabilities with Bing Image Creator, which can generate images from text prompts. The DALL-E 2-powered instrument will soon comprehend more than 100 different languages. Bing Chat is also gaining the ability to understand images as well as text, allowing users to upload images and search the web for related content.
The chatbot’s new features include the ability to store users’ chat histories, so they can pick up where they left off and return to previous chats when they wish. Users will also be able to export and share functions, letting them share conversations on social media or in a Word document. From partners like OpenTable and Wolfram Alpha, plugins greatly extend what Bing Chat can do, helping users book a reservation, create visualizations, and get answers to challenging science and math questions.
Bing Chat can be accessed through Edge, and the browser is also receiving a fresh coat of paint. The new and improved Edge features rounded corners in line with Microsoft’s Windows 11 design philosophy, and elements in the browser are now more “containerized.” In Compose, Edge’s Bing Chat-powered tool, a new option lets users adjust the length, phrasing, and tone of the generated text to nearly anything they’d like. Actions in Edge translate certain Bing Chat prompts into automation, such as opening Edge’s browsing data settings page or organizing and color-coordinating browsing tabs.
