Microsoft’s Bing AI Chat has consistently been one of the best ChatGPT alternatives people have been using. Armed with OpenAI’s new GPT-4 language model, the AI search engine-cum-chatbot can do a lot in little time. However, in an attempt to make things even better, Microsoft has announced a slew of changes that bolster the bot with even more functionality. Keep on reading as we discuss all the major changes.
Bing AI Chat Goes into Open Preview
While already packed with major power, one of the downsides of Bing Chat was that it was locked behind a waitlist. However, that has now changed as Microsoft Bing AI has been moved from Limited to Open Preview. This means that everyone can now access Bing AI Chat without any boundaries. However, do note that you will still need the Microsoft Edge browser to access Bing’s Chat mode. But we have already shared a workaround to use Bing AI Chat in any browser.
So those without access to the waitlist can now start using Bing AI without issues. All you need to do is create a Microsoft account and get started.
Bing Actions; ChatGPT Plugins Come to Bing
If you read about ChatGPT getting plugins, then you already know about the power they can bring. These plugins can add more power to the bot by bringing in information from other sources. Well, Microsoft has caught on to the former’s success and is now announcing future support for third-party plugins (called Bing Actions) in the chat experience. This opens up a lot of possibilities as developers will now be able to build feature-centric plugins that will intelligently power Bing.
For instance: If you ask Bing for the latest restaurant to have dinner in, it can help you find reservations using OpenTable. Or someone looking for answers to complex questions can benefit from using WolframAlpha. Microsoft is already working with its partners at OpenAI to make the plugin process consistent for developers. The company will announce more details at Microsoft Build later this month.
Bing AI Gets Major Chat Features
Besides the announcements above, chats themselves are also getting a bunch of new features poised to make the user experience easier.
For starters, Bing AI chats will soon deliver more visual and richer answers with the help of images and infographics like charts. The answers are also getting updated formatting to help users find information even quicker. Furthermore, Microsoft is soon bringing GPT-4’s multimodal capabilities to Bing AI. Users will soon be able to upload images and search the web for related content easily.
Microsoft has also listened to users by bringing some much-requested chat features. Starting soon, Bing AI will get a chat history, where users can return to previous conversations easily. As with ChatGPT, these chats will be marked by dates and easily sortable. Users will also soon be able to access chats even on different tabs using Persistent Chats through Edge.
For those looking to share their conversations like ChatGPT, Microsoft is soon adding the ability to export and share Bing chats. Users can easily export these conversations in proper formatting so they can easily transfer to companion software like Microsoft Word.
Apart from Bing Chat, Microsoft Edge is also going to help AI by using some new features. The browser will soon be getting Edge actions. This means that users looking for particular things online like movie names will be shown options in Bing Chat in the sidebar. Meanwhile, Edge Mobile will get page context to help Bing read the content and answer accordingly.
It is clear that Microsoft is arming Bing AI Chat with some serious virtual weapons to go up against any competitors. With Bing AI in tow with the best AI image generators, users can consider themselves a one person army. However, it will be fun to see what new developments come next.
