Microsoft beefs up ChatGPT and Bing in wide-ranging AI product launch
Microsoft Corp on Tuesday started making available to users a host of AI upgrades, including to ChatGPT, its search engine Bing as well as to cloud services - an expansive launch that seeks to narrow the gap with Alphabet Inc's Google.
Among key changes is the rollout of live search results from Bing to ChatGPT, the viral chatbot from its partner OpenAI whose answers originally were limited to information as of 2021.
Now, ChatGPT can pull from Bing web results for paid subscribers and will do so soon for free users, the company said at its annual Microsoft Build conference.
The company also is expanding so-called plug-ins for Bing, using a standard embraced by OpenAI and letting businesses transact more easily with consumers in its search engine.
For instance, one such tool can help a web surfer looking for dinner ideas with a suggested recipe and ingredients that could then be ordered from Instacart in a single click, said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's consumer chief marketing officer.
"This is a profound change to how people will use the web," he said in an interview.
Asked if Microsoft could sell ad placements related to the plug-ins, Mehdi said the company hasn't gotten to that point but that "the model for how people acquire customers is changing."
The updates to Bing are part of Microsoft's effort to capture more of the estimated $286 billion market for search advertising globally.
Like Microsoft, Google has also recently showcased generative AI upgrades for its search engine, learning from past data how to respond to open-ended queries where no clear answers exist on the web.
Which updated search engine consumers prefer remains unclear, as Google has yet to roll out its changes widely. However, its standalone competitor to
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