The AI field was dull and quiet, and the buzz it created mostly happened within its own field, and rarely reach far beyond its own audience.
But when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT as a AI chatbot tool, the internet was quickly captivated. This is because the AI is able to do a wide range of tasks, including writing poetry, technical papers, novels, and essays.
And when OpenAI starts monetizing ChatGPT with ChatGPT Plus, others went frenzy.
While ChatGPT has been proving itself more than useful, it has one huge disadvantage.
And that is its lack of knowledge beyond 2021.
Microsoft, the backer of OpenAI, is changing that.
Microsoft announced that OpenAI can use data from its Bing search engine to help improve its ChatGPT chatbot.
By incorporating Bing data, OpenAI can allow the chatbot to provide real-time information to users. With the ability to tap itself into Bing, ChatGPT can response with Bing's knowledge the search engine gathered from up-to-date websites, said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's marketing chief for consumer products, in an interview.
"They get to ground the answers. That will improve the relevancy. It will also make the answers more timely," Mehdi said. "The second thing is they can now use citations, so when they have answers, they can point to links where people want to learn more."
The company showed this off at the company's Microsoft Build developer conference, held in Seattle.
To make use of this feature, users must first pay for the ChatGPT Plus subscription.
It's worth noting that the feature isn't actually new.
Back in March, ChatGPT Plus subscription members were given the ability to use an "experimental model" that tapped into Bing to browse the internet for more up-to-date information than previously available, although this change was not disclosed at the time.
At least initially, ChatGPT Plus members are the only ones getting get the new Bing-infused version of the chatbot.
“This is just the start of what we plan to do with our partners in OpenAI to bring the best of Bing to the ChatGPT experience,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the company’s Build conference .
However, Microsoft clarified that eventually, the feature should come to users of the free chatbot version, as well.
At this time, users of the free version of ChatGPT can only pull data from before September 2021, and to bring Bing to ChatGPT, they have to enable a plugin.
As for Microsoft, it also has a ChatGPT competitor it calls Bing Chat.
It does whatever ChatGPT does, and that Microsoft has even begun building the AI a chat interface straight into Windows, its most important software product.
The goal of this aggressive push, is part of Microsoft's strategy to increase its share of the worldwide search advertising industry, which is still conquered by Google
With the help OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft attempts to narrow Alphabet Inc.'s Google data advantage in the two tech giants' AI war.