Microsoft has announced several major upgrades to its Bing chatbot and has refined Edge integration.
At an official event in New York, Microsoft revealed its AI-powered search bot will deliver visual-based answers and complete tasks such as booking a restaurant.
Bing Chat can now be used to request images and videos of products, places and things, and generate them via the Image Creator, which has been expanded to 100 new languages.
“We’re introducing richer, more visual answers including charts and graphs and updated formatting of answers, helping you find the information you seek more easily,” Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi said.
Perhaps the most interesting addition is Bing Actions.
The new feature will eliminate the often confusing and laborious task of bouncing between sites to make a booking or find a movie to watch on a streaming service.
Microsoft demonstrated Actions using the OpenTable dining service.
Users can use OpenTable in Bing to enter a local query for an Italian restaurant and browse reservation times before making a booking within a single interface.
Microsoft also illustrated how users can search for a specific movie and get the chatbot to play it immediately, using apps such as Apple TV.
The third upgrade is a highly requested feature; Bing Chat history.
Users will now be able to jump between different devices and continue the same conversation for the first time.
All of the new features will be integrated into Microsoft’s web browser, Edge.
Finally, Microsoft said it has given third-party developers the green light to create plugins for Bing Chat.
Mehdi concluded that this could be a potential “game-changer” for the future of search engines.
