Microsoft has made its AI chatbot available to the public on Bing and Edge, three months after integrating artificial intelligence into its search engine and web browser. The company previously required users to join a waitlist for access, but it now appears that anyone can use it without delay.
“Today I’m thrilled to share we are moving to the next generation of AI-powered Bing and Edge to transform the largest category of software in the world—search—by greatly expanding the vision and capabilities we think of as your copilot for the web,” according to Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s corporate VP and consumer chief marketing officer.
The AI chatbot was introduced by Microsoft in February, and the company has invested billions in OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. The chatbot aims to offer better content summaries, recommendations, and answers to complex queries. “It’s a new day in search, it’s a new paradigm in search, rapid innovation is going to come,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the time.
According to Microsoft, the chat features have helped users with a variety of tasks in the first 90 days, such as finding travel destinations for people with pollen allergies, and organizing global volcanic activity into a table spanning a decade.
“We’re excited about continuing to make Bing more accessible,” Mehdi said, teasing its introduction to the Windows taskbar.
