Microsoft unveils new AI-powered Bing search engine that you can chat with; a challenge to Google

Can Microsoft unseat Google in the search engine race? As the new AI wars heat up between Microsoft and Google, it appears all the stars are lining up in Microsoft’s favor, thanks to the sudden popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This time, Microsoft is not taking any chances as it capitalizes on the success of ChatGPT to revamp its Bing search engine and Edge web browser with artificial intelligence.

Today, Microsoft just unveiled its new Bing with integration using a model more powerful than ChatGPT. The new Bing search engine comes with a homepage that features new chat capabilities.

In a press event on Tuesday, the tech giant showcased new AI-powered updates to its Bing search engine and Edge browser, in one of its biggest efforts yet to dominate the search engine space and lead a new wave of technology that helps reshape how people gather information.

“This technology is going to reshape pretty much every software category,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told reporters at the event briefing at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

During the event, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman momentarily took the stage to confirm that Microsoft has integrated its GPT-3.5 language technologies to power some of the new software in the Bing search engine to improve its capabilities, which seems similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI.

“I feel like I’ve been waiting for this for 20 years so I’m very happy it’s here,” Altman said.

For example, you can ask the new Bing to plan a trip, and then ask it how much that trip will cost.  According to Microsoft, the new Bing can answer questions with lots of contexts similar to the way ChatGPT does, and also create itineraries for trips. The Bing can also find you a ticket to a Beyonce concert.

For example, you could ask: “Find me tickets to a Beyoncé concert in the United States where I won’t need a jacket at night” The AI-powered Bing also understands that it needs to find someplace with great weather and checks the tour dates, and it cross-checks the weather forecast during those dates.

Below is a video of the major highlights from the Tuesday event.

On January 23, Microsoft announced a new multi-billion dollar investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI following the $1 billion investment the software giant made in 2019. Microsoft declined to provide a specific dollar amount. However, as we reported earlier in back January, Microsoft was in talks to invest $10 billion in exchange for a 49% stake in the company.

Since its launch about two months ago, ChatGPT has impressed many experts with its writing ability, proficiency in handling complex tasks, and its ease of use. Before this announcement, ChatGPT was free to use but Altman said the company will at some point charge people to use the chatbot that many said could one day potentially replace humans.

Open AI is a research institute founded in late 2015 by Elon Musk and Sam Altman and 20 others including Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and Wojciech Zaremba. In 2018, Musk stepped down from OpenAI’s board of directors to avoid future conflicts of interest with Tesla’s self-driving car research. Both Musk and Altman said they were motivated to start OpenAI in part by concerns about existential risk from artificial general intelligence.