Microsoft Debuts AI

Microsoft announced it is including AI-powered generative features into its Bing search, giving a small number of users preview access.

Microsoft has been increasingly incorporating AI features across its platforms and services. While Microsoft began integrating AI early on, thanks to its deal with OpenAI, the company is taking its generative search to an all-new level.

The company made the announcement in a blog post:

After introducing LLM-powered chat answers on Bing in February of last year, we’ve been hard at work on the ongoing revolution of search. Bing continues to be trusted by hundreds of millions of users to find information, get answers to questions, and explore their curiosity. Today, we’re excited to share an early view of our new generative search experience which is currently shipping to a small percentage of user queries.

The company says its new search features are designed to provide more useful information, context, and sources for the user to conduct further research:

For example, if a user searches “What is a spaghetti western?” Bing shows an AI-generated experience that dives into the film subgenre, including its history and origins, top examples and more. The information is easy to read and understand, with links and sources that show where it came from or let the user dive deeper. The regular search results continue to be prominently displayed on the page like always.

This new experience combines the foundation of Bing’s search results with the power of large and small language models (LLMs and SLMs). It understands the search query, reviews millions of sources of information, dynamically matches content, and generates search results in a new AI-generated layout to fulfill the intent of the user’s query more effectively.

Interestingly, Microsoft addresses one of the biggest concerns many have about AI-powered search, saying the data shows websites are still receiving the same number of clicks:

We’ve refined our methods to optimize accuracy in Bing, applying those insights as we continue to evolve our use of LLMs in search. We are continuing to look closely at how generative search impacts traffic to publishers. Early data indicates that this experience maintains the number of clicks to websites and supports a healthy web ecosystem. The generative search experience is designed with this in mind, including retaining traditional search results and increasing the number of clickable links, like the references in the results.

OpenAI announced Thursday that it is launching a preview of its own search engine, SearchGPT. Google has been increasingly integrating AI into its search as well. With Bing’s new generative AI search, the search market is being redefined across the spectrum.