Microsoft might be close to integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT on its Bing search engine. Last Friday, a few users spotted Bing quietly rolling out a new “AI-powered answer engine,” which can respond to a variety of questions.
A student named Owen Yin briefly accessed the feature, which is designed to act as a helpful AI-powered assistant. According to his screenshots, Microsoft plans on introducing the chat feature as part of “the new Bing” experience.
Before it was shut down, the chat feature could be accessed via the Bing tabs in search results. Clicking it would replace the traditional Bing.com interface with a new “Ask me anything” chat box, where you could type in your request.
In a blog post, Yin noted the chat function seems to improve OpenAI’s existing ChatGPT program in several ways: First, it’ll not only give you an answer, but also cite the sources, including the websites from which it gathered the information. In addition, the program isn't limited to knowledge up to 2021, and can access the most current information.
Yin also claims Bing is integrating the upgraded GPT-4 from OpenAI—and not the existing GPT-3 model—to power the feature. The result can create human-like conversations that promise to offer faster response times than the existing ChatGPT model, which is currently free, but can suffer from slowdowns due to user traffic. For example, Yin wrote: “After I asked Bing about popular movies from 2022, it gave some suggested follow-up responses. It replied to its own question and asked a follow-up question of its own.”
A few other users tried out the chat function. However, Microsoft quickly shut off access that day. We’ve reached out to Microsoft about the chat feature, and we’ll update the story if we hear back. But according to Bloomberg, the company has already spent the last several months integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT into Bing. In January, Microsoft also announced it was pouring billions into OpenAI to commercialize the company’s technologies.
The ChatGPT integration could turn Bing into a worthy rival to Google's search engine. Although chatbots have existed for years, OpenAI's program is smart enough to write essays, explain complex concepts, and even fix bugs in computer code due to varying degrees of success. According to financial analysts at UBS, ChatGPT has risen to become the fastest growing app of all time. In the meantime, Google says it's moving quick to respond and could offer its own alternative to ChatGPT as soon as this week.