Just six months after reinventing their search experience with an AI-powered Bing, Microsoft announced it is bringing key capabilities to third-party web and mobile browsers soon. This expansion comes as Microsoft celebrates surpassing 1 billion chats on Bing and 750 million images created using Bing Image Creator.
Since launching the new Bing in February, Microsoft has rapidly rolled out innovative features leveraging other OpenAI models like DALL-E. Bing Image Creator allows users to generate pictures simply by describing them in words. The recent addition of Visual Search takes this further, letting users ask questions about images they provide.
Microsoft has also focused on improving the conversational experience across both desktop and mobile. Chat History saves conversations and makes them easily referenceable later. Dark Mode, Multimodal Search, and Bing Chat Enterprise for businesses have also been introduced.
The company has also brought AI innovations to mobile. SwiftKey, a favorite for many due to its AI-backed predictive text, now houses Bing’s capabilities. From AI translations to email tone adjustments, the synergy between Bing and SwiftKey augments text-based interactions. The Bing mobile app provides full access to features like Bing Chat and Image Creator.
Bringing core capabilities to third-party browsers signals strong momentum and reach. While the full experience remains optimized for Edge, expanding beyond Microsoft's own browsers provides more users access to Bing's AI capabilities.
This also comes amid nine straight quarters of growth for the Edge browser itself, indicating strong adoption of Microsoft's own offerings. The company credits AI integration for much of this increased retention and engagement.
Looking ahead, Microsoft teased new plug-ins and refinements to enhance Bing further. The rapid pace of development reflects the company’s heavy investment in AI-powered search.Just six months in, Bing is showing promising progress for how AI can create more natural, conversational search experiences.