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Over a year ago, Microsoft started launching its generative AI assistant, which it called Bing Chat. The idea was that it was supposed to help people have a better and more interactive Internet search experience and help boost Bing"s search engine use. However, in the months that followed Microsoft decided to turn Bing Chat into an overall assistant, Copilot, and ditch the Bing branding from the service.
Today, Microsoft announced it is launching a new Bing search experience for a small number of its users. This "Bing generative search" uses AI and both large and small language models to give those test users a better search experience, at least according to Microsoft.
In today"s blog post, Microsoft offers an example of how Bing generative search creates answers to search questions:
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.
Microsoft says that it has refined the methods with the Bing generative search so that users will get as accurate a response as possible for questions. It also claims that it has been testing out this new format to see how it generates traffic for websites. Right now, the company claims that this new Bing generative search feature "maintains the number of clicks to websites and supports a healthy web ecosystem."
Microsoft has not revealed how many Bing users are accessing this new AI-based search experience. The blog post indicated that the company plans to take its time to receive feedback from the public testers before expanding it to more Bing search users.