After a shaky public preview, Microsoft has upgraded its ChatGPT-based Bing AI chatbot in an effort to improve its personalized local recommendations and more. The company revealed in a blog post that it received feedback about the lackluster performance of Bing’s local search queries, such as those looking for everything from restaurants to doctors “near me.” Microsoft’s hope is that the enhancements will correct the chatbot’s course as the AI-enabled search engine battles with competitors such as Google’s still-underdeveloped AI chatbot, Bard.
As part of the update, Microsoft has made several more enhancements that could give Bing a momentary advantage. It has increased the number of queries, or “turns,” you can take in a single conversation from 15 to 20; with its allowance for 10 daily sessions, that provides a maximum limit of 200 total turns per day. The company has also integrated image and video search capabilities into the search chatbot, which will pop up as answer cards that enable users to “see more” details.
Since its debut, the ChatGPT-enabled Bing has attracted more users to Microsoft’s search engine, buoyed by the massive public interest in emergent AI technologies. As the competition has been heating up, Microsoft’s moves likely forced Google to release Bard AI prematurely — and neither wants to miss this golden, AI-enabled opportunity.
