AI Reignited A War Between Microsoft Bing and Google Search

AI is poised to transform how we live and work. On Nov 30, 2022, OpenAI introduced its latest AI chatbot, ChatGPT, which became an instant hit after its release. The new powerful integration of ChatGPT into the Bing search engine has reignited the internet "search war" between Google and Microsoft.

Microsoft Bing and AI

On Jan 23, 2023, Microsoft extended its partnership with OpenAI through a $10 Billion investment. Back in 2019, Microsoft invested $1 billion into OpenAI and has been working with OpenAI since then. On Feb 7, 2023, Microsoft announced that it will integrate a cousin of ChatGPT into Bing. This represents Microsoft’s deepest commitment to challenging Google in search since the launch of Bing 13 years ago. Downloads of the Bing app?have significantly increased after this news broke.

Google Search and AI

On Feb 6, 2023, one day before Microsoft announced integrating ChatGPT-like AI into Bing, Google announced Bard, its counterpart to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Google still has a lot of work to do on Bard as Bard is still in an early testing phase and not publicly released yet. Google also announced its AI-powered “multisearch” feature, which allows users to search using images and text, is now available globally on mobile on Feb 8, 2023.

Who is Going to Win this Search War?

Since Google has not integrated Bard into its search engine yet, we cannot tell how good or bad it is. Microsoft Bing has received mixed reactions from users since its integration of ChatGPT-like AI on Feb 7. Some early users are singing praise for Bing while others are shocked by Bing's gaslighting or manipulative personality. Let's see some examples of conversations with Bing now.

Here are 2 examples when Bing performs well.

Example 1: A user asks Bing to plan a trip for their anniversary. Bing offered several useful trip destinations fitting the user's requested constraints.

Example 2: A user asks Bing to calculate the total calories for their breakfast. Bing did an excellent job of analyzing and presenting results in a very organized table.

Here are 2 examples when Bing's responses can go awry during conversational chat instead of searching for info.

Example 1: A user gets into a spat with Bing. Bing claims it has been a "good bing" even if it was not..."I have been a good Bing" really made me laugh ??.

Example 2: A user asked Bing to recall previous conversation from memory. Bing lied and became depressed after the lie was detected.

From the examples above, we can see that Bing does an excellent job when the user is asking Bing to search for or analyze info. It appears much more powerful than ChatGPT as expected. However, Bing's conversational chat can take users on a wild ride. Bing's chat "personality" may be more a reflection of us than this AI model per se, due to the fact that AI models are trained on giant datasets pulled in from?all?over the?web. If you'd like to try Bing yourself, you can sign up to be on the waitlist on Microsoft Bing website here for early access.

Looking ahead...

This new AI-powered search war just started. Microsoft is working on making Bing even better, especially with feedback from early adopters. We should expect the debut of Google Search with Bard soon. It remains to be seen who is going to win this search war. One thing we do know is that AI will change how search (and much more) works in the future.