The new AI-powered Bing is now open to everyone - with some serious upgrades
The release of Bing's AI-powered search engine nearly three months ago placed Bing ahead in the AI race, even earning it the title of ZDNET's overall best AI chatbot. Because the chatbot was under limited preview, however, not everyone had access to it -- until today.
Starting Thursday, Bing Chat is moving from limited preview to open preview, meaning everyone can access the chatbot without the need to join a pesky waitlist.
Also: ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat: Which AI chatbot is better for you?
All you now need to do to access the preview now is sign into Bing with your Microsoft account and you're all set.
Although the the new Bing is open to everyone, it is still in preview, meaning your feedback is still welcome and sought after by Microsoft.
"By shifting over from a limited reading to an open preview, we're expecting to be able to learn more, and as a result, be able to customize the experience based on user feedback," Dena Saunders, Partner General Manager, Bing, told ZDNET.
Also: This new technology could blow away GPT-4 and everything like it
Under the open preview, users will not only be able to access all the popular and useful features of the new Bing, based on GPT-4, but they will also access a ton of new updates that Microsoft unveiled in Thursday's blog post.
We rounded up the biggest upgrades below, and coming from someone who demo-ed them all, you will want to try these.
Incorporation of new visual elements
Sometimes the best answer to a question can be expressed through a visual element; after all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Bing is harnessing this idea by bringing its visual features such as Knowledge Cards to the chat.
For example, in the demo, the chatbot was asked "How deep is the Indian Ocean?" It was then able to provide a graphic showing the actual ocean and its depths.
If the question you asked the chatbot could be better answered with a visual element, like a graph or chart, the chatbot will provide one.
For example, when asked "Brazil cities by population" the chatbot produced the chart below.
One of the biggest features of OpenAI's GPT-4 language learning model is its ability to accept both text and image inputs and output human-like text. Microsoft is now harnessing this technology into its own chatbot.
For example, in the demo the user uploaded a photo of a crocheted octopus and asked how to make it. The new Bing was able to read the image to produce a response.
Lastly, Bing's Image creator will now work with all languages in Bing, allowing users to generate AI images from text in their native language.
View your chats at a later date
A couple of handy updates are coming to the chat interface to make conversations easier to access at a later time.
Also: How to use Midjourney to generate amazing images
Starting soon, users will be able to export and share their conversations with the chatbot. The export feature will allow users to take the exact conversation within the chatbot and export it to other tools such as Microsoft Word.
This feature can be especially useful when using the bot to create something for you, such as an essay, an image or even a chart.
If you want to revisit a conversation at a later time but don't necessarily want to export it, users will be able to save conversations in their chat history soon.
Microsoft Edge updates
Microsoft Edge's interface is getting a facelift. Some of the appearance changes include rounded corners, organized containers and semi-transparent visual elements which will be available to users soon.
Also: How to use Microsoft Edge's integrated Bing AI Image Creator
In addition to the aesthetics upgrade, new features will be arriving to Edge to improve user productivity.
For example, improved summarization capabilities will allow Edge to summarize long documents such as PDFs, and longer form websites from the sidebar.
Also: This AI chatbot can sum up a PDF and answer questions you have about it
In the demo, the user asked the chatbot a specific question about the PDF opened on the left hand side of the screen, and within seconds, the chatbot produced an answer in the bar on the right.
With Actions in Edge, users will be able to complete a task in the browser simply by giving the chatbot a command. For example, in the sidebar you can ask the chatbot to create tab groups for you and it will do so for you.
You can also ask the chatbot to play a movie for you and then it will show you options of where you can stream it and play the movie for you at the touch of a button.
Plug-ins for third parties
Similarly to ChatGPT, Microsoft is working on building third-party plug-ins into the chat experience.
Two examples Microsoft provided were a Wolfram Alpha plug-in which would allow for advanced mathematical calculations and graphs to occur in Bing Chat and an Open Table plug-in which would give the chatbot the ability to make reservations for you.