Microsoft Launches AI‑Powered Bing and Edge with Next‑Generation Large Language Model

The announcement that Google launched its experimental conversational AI service Bard was quickly followed, 24 hours later, by Microsoft's major announcement of a consumer AI language model product.

Through a partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, Microsoft has integrated an advanced AI conversational model into its search engine, supporting a new version of Bing and Edge.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, "This is an exciting moment for the tech world; our next‑generation platform is becoming practical day by day. I believe this technology will reshape most software. AI is reshaping the internet, just as the web and mobile did before."

Microsoft views the new internet revolution as a universal AI agent covering all human‑computer interaction, and is releasing the most important capability—search—first.

The new Bing combines traditional search results with AI annotations side‑by‑side, and also offers a chat mode where users can converse with an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT.

Access to the new Bing is currently limited to a desktop preview, and many users cannot yet join due to high demand.

Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI, becoming its exclusive cloud partner, and Azure powers OpenAI workloads.

With OpenAI technology, Microsoft updated Bing and Edge to provide better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience, and content generation capabilities.

Better search experience: improved relevance for simple queries like sports scores, stock prices, and weather, with a new sidebar for comprehensive answers.

Full answers: Bing reviews web results and summarizes the desired answer, e.g., detailed cooking substitutions.

New chat experience: interactive conversations for complex tasks such as travel planning or product research, offering follow‑up clarification and actionable links.

Creative spark: AI‑generated content for emails, itineraries, interview preparation, with cited sources.

New Edge features: AI‑enhanced browsing, chat and compose functions, sidebar summaries of long reports, and automatic data extraction into tables.

Edge can also help write content such as LinkedIn posts, adjusting tone, format, and length based on user prompts while understanding the current webpage.

The new Bing experience is built on four technological breakthroughs: a next‑generation OpenAI large language model, the proprietary Prometheus model that combines OpenAI capabilities with Microsoft’s own technology, AI applied to core search ranking, and a unified user experience integrating search, browsing, and chat.

Microsoft and OpenAI are implementing safeguards against harmful content, misinformation, and data security risks, and are committed to responsible AI development.

The limited preview of the new Bing is currently available on desktop, with plans to expand to millions of users and a mobile preview in the coming weeks.