Microsoft Wants To 'Reinvent' Search And Web Browsing Using AI-Powered Bing And Edge

Google Search is undisputedly large, and its Chrome is the most popular web browser. But with AI, Microsoft is seeing an opportunity here.

Microsoft believes that by leveraging machine learning models, it can improve "how the world benefits from the web by reinventing the tools billions of people use every day, the search engine and the browser."

To do this, the company is launching "an all new, AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser."

Initially available in preview, the search engine is enhanced to be able to deliver better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to generate content.

"We think of these tools as an AI copilot for the web," said Microsoft in its blog post.

According to CEO and Chairman of Microsoft, Satya Nadella:

Microsoft believes that people use search engines using whatever queries imaginable, and unimaginable.

At least 10 billion search queries are made per day, and about 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.

With AI, Microsoft wants both Bing and Edge to be users' "copilot" for the web.

According to Microsoft, the unified experience of browsing and chatting can deliver:

• Better search. The enhanced Bing gives users an improved version of the familiar search experience.
• Complete answers. Bing reviews results from across the web to find and summarize the answer you’re looking for.
• A new chat experience. For more complex searches, the chat experience empowers users to refine their search until they get the complete answer they are looking for by asking for more details, clarity and ideas.
• A creative spark. The enhanced Bing can generate the content to help users, like to write an email, create itinerary for a vacation, with links to book travel and accommodations, and many more.
• New Microsoft Edge experience. Microsoft updated Edge with new AI capabilities and a new look, and we’ve added two new functionalities: Chat and compose.

With the enhanced Bing, Microsoft promises an easier web browser that is also more fun. That, thanks to AI.

Microsoft mentioned four technical breakthroughs:

1. Next-generation OpenAI model. Microsoft announced that its enhanced Bing runs on "a new, next-generation OpenAI large language model that is more powerful than ChatGPT," customized specifically for search.
2. Microsoft Prometheus model. Microsoft developed a proprietary way of working with the OpenAI model that allows it to best leverage its power.
3. Applying AI to core search algorithm. Microsoft also applied the AI model to its core Bing search ranking engine.
4. New user experience. Microsoft reimagines how users interact with search, browser and chat, by pulling them into a unified experience. This will unlock a completely new way to interact with the web.

Read: OpenAI Upgrades GPT-3, And Announces What It Calls The 'ChatGPT' AI

In all, this is powered by Azure, and also OpenAI that uses the infrastructure to train the breakthrough models that are being optimized for Bing.

Initially, the enhanced Bing is made available in limited preview on desktop.

Microsoft allows anyone to sign up for the waitlist by visiting Bing.com, and try sample queries.

Microsoft said that it's also working on a mobile experience for the enhanced Bing.

Previously, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has issued a "code red" to warn even the company's founders, that future AI can be disruptive.

Microsoft Bing and Microsoft Edge compete directly with Google Search and Google Chrome. With conversational and powerful AI, Microsoft can turn the two products into a much more powerful products.

This is exactly what Google is afraid of.

Related: Microsoft Wants To Use OpenAI's 'ChatGPT' To Improve Its Bing Search Engine