Microsoft Arms Bing, Edge Browser With AI To Take On Google

Tech giant Microsoft on Tuesday announced the launch of AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser to break the decades-long search engine dominance by Google.

The new improved Bing comes with all new, AI-powered search engine to deliver better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to generate content.

In a statement, Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft said, “AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the largest category of all – search.”

“Today, we’re launching Bing and Edge powered by AI copilot and chat, to help people get more from search and the web,” he added.

Microsoft estimates that there are 10 billion search queries per day, but half of them go unanswered. “That’s because people are using search to do things it wasn’t originally designed to do. It’s great for finding a website, but for more complex questions or tasks too often it falls short,” explained Microsoft in its blog.

The company says that the new improved Bing can review results from across the web to find and summarise the answer a user is looking for. “For example, you can get detailed instructions for how to substitute eggs for another ingredient in a cake you are baking right in that moment, without scrolling through multiple results,” the company said.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has updated the Edge browser with new AI capabilities and a new look. Now, with the Edge Sidebar, users can ask for a summary of a lengthy financial report to get the key takeaways – and then use the chat function to ask for a comparison to a competing company’s financials and automatically put it in a table.

“You can also ask Edge to help you compose content, such as a LinkedIn post, by giving it a few prompts to get you started. After that, you can ask it to help you update the tone, format and length of the post. Edge can understand the web page you’re on and adapts accordingly,” Microsoft said.

These developments from Microsoft come soon after it announced greater collaboration with ChatGPT-creator OpenAI. It is believed that the tech behemoth has invested USD 10 billion into OpenAI to tap into the power of AI. Earlier, Microsoft had already invested USD 1 billion into the AI startup.