Microsoft has taken a cue from Google’s AI Overviews, rolling out AI-generated answers in its Bing search engine. Starting on July 25, “a small percentage of user queries” will result in custom-made answers to questions typed into the search bar.
“Bing continues to be trusted by hundreds of millions of users to find information, get answers to questions, and explore their curiosity,” Microsoft wrote in a Bing blog post on Thursday.
Answers generated by Bing AI will appear at the top of search results for certain queries and will include sources that users can easily click through to verify or learn more about the answer. Standard search results will appear in a column next to the AI-generated answer. The goal is to surface the answer the user wants more quickly, Microsoft said.
Last year, Microsoft added ChatGPT-powered search and chat into Bing.
“We’ve refined our methods to optimize accuracy in Bing, applying those insights as we continue to evolve our use of LLMs in search,” Microsoft wrote in the Bing blog post.
The Seattle giant hasn’t revealed which AI models make Bing search work, simply saying it uses both small and large language models.
I spoke to several people who switched from using Google Search to using Bing specifically to avoid AI-generated answers. Microsoft might do well to learn from Copilot and Recall, which sparked privacy concerns and, in the case of Recall, was delayed. On the other hand, the inclusion of generative AI in software products seems inevitable in 2024.
SEE: Meta recently revealed Llama 3.1, its most advanced large language model yet.
For businesses that rely in part on web clicks, Microsoft reassures them that “Early data indicates that this experience maintains the number of clicks to websites and supports a healthy web ecosystem.”
The idea is that users will still interact with traditional search results while the Bing AI search results are, “increasing the number of clickable links, like the references in the results,” Microsoft wrote.
It’s too early to say whether that will turn out to be true. Microsoft may be trying to emulate Google, which, as of January 2024, still held 81.95% of desktop search market share, according to Statista. Bing holds the middle ground at 10.51%, ahead of Yahoo at 2.67%.
