Microsoft CEOs: Current and past. L-R: Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, Steve Ballmer, photographed on Nadella’s first day as CEO. (Source: Wikimedia)

Microsoft Plans to Make Bing Its Next Big Thing with ChatGPT

Many of us may have thought that the search engine Bing was passé. Not so says Microsoft, unveiling a new Bing sample this week in a limited preview.

Microsoft announced what it describes as four technical breakthroughs underpinning a new AI-powered search experience:

  • -Bing is now running on a new next-generation OpenAI large language model, more powerful than the ChatGPT chatbot and designed for search.
  • -A new “Prometheus Model” lets Bing improve relevancy, annotate answers, give more recent results, understand geolocation, and improve safety.
  • -There are improvements in the core search ranking engine, with AI creating the largest jump in relevancy in years, according to the company.
  • -The user experience combines search with AI, chat, and other capabilities.
  • Todd Bishop of geekwire.com has a detailed article about Microsoft’s reemergence into the headlines with a newly imagined way to search the net.

A sample of the new Edge screen when asked a question.

Microsoft’s Edge

New features in Microsoft’s Edge include the ability to open a sidebar that uses AI to draft text, such as a LinkedIn post, within the specified parameters of the users, including the tone of voice to be used.

“Our intention is to bring it to all browsers; we’re starting with Edge,” said Microsoft executive Yusuf Mehdi, asked by a reporter if Microsoft will offer the new experience for Chrome and other browsers.

Microsoft has been trying to make its mark in the search business since the late 1990s when it launched MSN Search, initially powered by third-party technologies. That evolved into Windows Live Search, relaunched as Bing in 2009. The rise of AI may give Microsoft a new chance to challenge Google’s search dominance. Bing is the second-largest player in the global search market.

The news this week follows the Jan. 23 announcement of an additional investment by Microsoft in OpenAI, described by Microsoft as “a multiyear, multibillion-dollar” designed to accelerate AI breakthroughs and releases. For OpenAI, one of the key benefits of the partnership is access to Microsoft’s technology infrastructure for training AI models. For Microsoft, it provides access to Open AI’s technology and a high-profile example of its cloud prowess in its competition with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.

OpenAI said in the Jan. 23 announcement of its extended Microsoft partnership that Azure’s “unique architecture design has been crucial in delivering best-in-class performance and scale for our AI training and inference workloads.”

Seems like a very good time to check how much Microsoft stock your portfolio may still have.

read more at geekwire.com