Microsoft
is
revamping
its
Bing
search
engine
and
Edge
web
browser
with
artificial
intelligence,
in
one
of
its
biggest
efforts
yet
to
lead
a
new
wave
of
technology
and
reshape
how
people
gather
information.
Microsoft
is
staking
its
future
on
AI
through
billions
of
dollars
of
investment
as
it
directly
challenges
Google.
Working
with
the
startup
OpenAI,
the
company
is
aiming
to
leapfrog
its
rival
and
potentially
claim
vast
returns
from
tools
that
speed
up
all
manner
of
content
creation,
automating
tasks
if
not
jobs
themselves.
“This
technology
is
going
to
reshape
pretty
much
every
software
category,”
Microsoft
chief
executive
Satya
Nadella
told
reporters
in
a
briefing
at
Microsoft
headquarters.
The
power
of
so-called
generative
AI
that
can
create
virtually
any
text
or
image
dawned
on
the
public
last
year
with
the
release
of
ChatGPT, the
chatbot
sensation from
OpenAI.
Its
human-like
responses
to
any
prompt
have
given
people
new
ways
to
think
about
the
possibilities
of
marketing,
writing
term
papers
or
disseminating
news,
or
even
how
to
query
information
online.
The
new
Bing
search
engine
is
“your
AI-powered
robot
for
the
web,”
said
Microsoft
consumer
chief
marketing
officer
Yusuf
Mehdi,
noting
that
it
is
live
in
limited
preview
on
desktop
computers
and
will
be
available
for
mobile
devices
in
coming
weeks.
Bing
will
be
powered
by
AI
and
run
on
a
new,
next-generation
“large
language
model”
that
is
more
powerful
than
ChatGPT,
Mehdi
said.
A
chatbot
will
help
users
refine
queries
more
easily,
give
more
relevant,
up-to-date
results,
and
even
make
shopping
easier.
Bing
ranks
a
distant
second
to
Google
in
terms
of
search.
Microsoft
is
now
aiming
to
market
OpenAI’s
technology,
including
ChatGPT,
to
its
cloud
customers
and
add
the
same
power
to
its
suite
of
products,
including
search.
Google
has
taken
note. Earlier
this
week,
it
unveiled a
chatbot
of
its
own
called
Bard,
while
it
is
planning
to
release
AI
for
its
search
engine
that
can
synthesize
material
when
no
simple
answer
exists
online.
Microsoft’s
decision
to
update
its
Edge
browser
will
intensify
competition
with
Google’s
Chrome
browser.
The
rivalry
in
search
is
now
among
the
industry’s
biggest,
as
OpenAI
sets
up
Microsoft
to
expand
its
nine
percent
share
at
Google’s
expense,
said
Daniel
Ives,
an
analyst
with
Wedbush
Securities.
“Microsoft
is
looking
to
win
this
AI
battle,”
he
said
in
a
research
note.
Practical
uses
At
the
event,
Mehdi
demonstrated
how
the
AI-enhanced
search
engine
will
make
shopping
and
creating
emails
much
easier.
A
demonstration
showed
how
Bing
could
estimate,
for
example,
whether
a
certain
type
of
couch
could
fit
in
the
back
of
a
car
by
pulling
together
web
data
on
one’s
vehicle
dimensions.
For
the
quarter
ending
December
31,
Alphabet
reported
US$42.6
billion
(A$61.4
billion)
in
Google
Search
and
other
revenue,
while
Microsoft
posted
US$3.2
billion
from
search
and
news
advertising.
Behind
Microsoft’s
OpenAI
partnership
is
its
plan
to
invest
in
supercomputer
development
and
cloud
support
so
the
startup
can
release
more
sophisticated
technology
and
aim
at
the
level
of
machine
intelligence
dreamed
up
in
science
fiction.
The
fruit
of
this
work,
however,
is
more
immediate.
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.
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