Redmond, Wash. — Microsoft is revamping its Bing search engine and Edge web browser with artificial. Intelligence, the company said Tuesday, signaling its ambition to . Regain leadership in the consumer technology market where it has been lagging.
The maker of the Windows operating system. Is shaping its future in AI with a billion-dollar investment as it . Challenges Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which has outpaced . Microsoft in search and browser technology for years.
Now, Microsoft is building an intelligent . Chatbot to live alongside Bing’s search results, putting AI that can . Summarize web pages, synthesize disparate sources. Even compose emails and translate them into the hands of more customers. Microsoft expects that every percentage point it gains will bring in . Another $2 billion in search advertising revenue.
Working with startup OpenAI. Microsoft is aiming to leapfrog its Silicon Valley rival and claim huge. Returns from tools that speed up, if not automate, content creation in general. It will affect products for businesses, such as . The cloud-computing and collaboration tools Microsoft sells. As well as the consumer Internet.
“This technology is going to reshape almost every software category,” Microsoft . CEO Satya Nadella told reporters at a briefing at the company’s headquarters in . Redmond, Washington.
So far the search company’s shares are roughly a tenth of the market. Still, many investors see the new technology as a win for all players. Microsoft stock closed up 4.2% on Tuesday, while Alphabet gained 4.6%.
The power of so-called generative. AI that can generate any text or image came to the . Public last year with the release of chatbot sensation ChatGPT from OpenAI. Its human-like responses to any prompt have given people new ways. To think about marketing possibilities, writing term papers or . Publishing news, or how to search for information online.
Microsoft’s new Bing search engine is . Live in limited preview on desktop computers and will be available. For mobile devices next week. The company hopes user . Feedback will improve its AI, which Microsoft officials say . Can still produce incorrect information known as hallucinations. Meanwhile it has worked to protect its technology from abuse.
Underpinning the new Bing is what. Microsoft calls the Prometheus model — . OpenAI’s most powerful technology informed on-demand by real-time web data from Bing. This means Bing’s chatbot can . Brief consumers about current events, a step beyond ChatGPT’s answers. Which are currently limited to 2021 data.
Jordi Ribas. Microsoft’s corporate vice president for search and AI, told . Reuters that technological advances his team saw last summer encouraged the . Company to move forward with AI-infused Bing.
Microsoft’s chief financial officer also said . OpenAI’s “new, next-generation” technology is powering its search engine, though officials declined to. Specify whether that included the startup’s anticipated upgrade known as GPT-4.
Microsoft aims to market . OpenAI’s technology with ChatGPT to its cloud customers and add the same . Power to its suite of products, not search.
In the near term, Gartner analyst Jason . Wong said that Microsoft’s “partnership with . OpenAI is more relevant to its business customers.” Still, he said, it could also offer “disruptive opportunities” in consumer businesses.
Google besides notes Microsoft’s challenge. On Monday it unveiled a chatbot of its own called Bird. While it plans to release its own AI in search that can synthesize. Content when there are no easy answers online.
Microsoft’s decision to update. Its Edge browser will likewise intensify competition with rival Google’s Chrome. But, the Redmond-based company hopes to roll out the updated Bing to other browsers.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at . Wedbush Securities. Said the competition in search is now the biggest in the tech industry. As OpenAI sets up Microsoft to expand its 9% share at Google’s expense.
For the quarter ended Dec. 31. Alphabet reported $42.6 billion in Google search and other revenue. While Microsoft posted $3.2 billion from search and news advertising.
Microsoft executives say the new . Bing will change how people find information on the Internet.
For example a chatbot can help users refine . Questions more and provide more relevant, up-to-date results.
The AI-powered search engine will be . Able to provide clear answers in plain language, synthesizing . What Bing has found on the web and in its own data vault, rather than knocking out links to websites. Make more current events queries from live data on the internet
imate, for example. Whether a certain type of seat could fit in the back of a car by pulling together . Web data on one’s vehicle dimensions and on the shopping product in question.
Within the Edge browser. Bing’s AI can present takeaways of financial results or other web . Pages as well, aiming to save readers from having to make sense of a. long or complicated document, Microsoft said. It can suggest computer code, too.
Behind these efforts is . Microsoft’s plan to invest in supercomputer development and cloud support so. OpenAI can release even more sophisticated technology and aim . At the level of machine intelligence dreamed up in science fiction.
Already, results of this collaboration are manifesting beyond search. Last week Microsoft announced the startup’s AI will generate meeting notes in . Teams, its collaboration software. As well as suggest email replies to vendors using its . Viva Sales subscription.
