Microsoft is trying to transform itself as the leader in developing generative AI services, and that includes adding those services and features to the Edge browser. Today, the company revealed some Edge stats for 2023 that show how people are using the browser for things like making conversations with the Copilot chatbot, shopping, entertainment, and more.
The blog post states that in the past 12 months, Edge users, along with people who used Bing search, engaged in "more than 1.9 billion Copilot chats". It added that Edge users "created over 1.8 billion AI-generated images".
Microsoft also noted that Edge users who shopped online had a "yearly average savings of $400." It said that " worldwide shoppers were offered a total of more than $4 billion in savings on Edge." In November, Microsoft rolled out Copilot Shopping services, which let users type in generative AI text prompts to find deals on the internet for extra savings.
Microsoft added support for playing casual games in Edge a while ago. Today, the company revealed that "users played almost 9000 years of casual free games," or 4.7 billion minutes, since that feature was added to the browser.
In terms of security, Microsoft claims that in 2023, "Edge stopped over 127 million phishing attacks". The company stated that was the same as "four phishing attacks stopped every second for an entire year."
Finally, Microsoft said that in 2023, members of the Microsoft Rewards program earned "148 million rewards points on Edge." This particular bragging point is pretty ironic, considering that Microsoft cut back the number of reward points that people can earn every day on Edge just a few weeks ago.
With 2024 just a few days away, we will have to see how Microsoft continues to add AI features to Edge. Hopefully, the company will also cut down on the intrusive promotion of Edge and Bing that has resulted in many users complaining about those efforts.