Bing Blogs: Introducing Deep Search. “Deep Search builds on Bing’s existing web index and ranking system and enhances them with GPT-4. GPT-4 is a state-of-the-art generative AI LLM (Large Language Model) that can create natural language text from any input. In the case of Deep Search, GPT-4 takes the search query and expands it into a more comprehensive description of what an ideal set of results should include.”
Bing Blog: Microsoft Copilot is now generally available. “Since Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise) launched in preview in February, people around the world have embraced it as their everyday AI companion. It’s been used to generate billions of prompts and responses, helping people be more creative and productive in their lives. We’re excited to keep this momentum going by announcing that Copilot is now generally available and no longer in preview.”
PC Magazine: Microsoft Rate Hikes for Bing Use May Put This Google Alternative Out of Business. “Running a green search engine can be a mean business, one where Google’s dominance of the search market is just the start of the possible challenges In an interview at the Web Summit conference here, Ecosia CEO Christian Kroll unpacked a variety of obstacles threatening his search nonprofit, which plows all of its income into tree-planting campaigns.”
404 Media: Bing Generates Disney Logos, Definitely Won’t Incur Disney’s Wrath . “Microsoft is trying to play prompt generation keyword whack-a-mole with AI-generated copyright infringement against one of the most powerful entertainment companies in the world: Disney.”
The Conversation: Why Google, Bing and other search engines’ embrace of generative AI threatens $68 billion SEO industry. “Google, Microsoft and others boast that generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT will make searching the internet better than ever for users. For example, rather than having to wade through a sea of URLs, users will be able to just get an answer combed from the entire internet.”
Search Engine Roundtable: Bing DALL-E 3 Went Live Over The Weekend But It Was Painfully Slow. “Microsoft launched DALL-E 3 in Bing Chat late on Friday night and went it went live, it just stalled. It took a really long time for Bing Chat to create images using DALL-E 3 after it went live.”
Bloomberg: Microsoft Says Apple Used Bing as Google ‘Bargaining Chip’. “A Microsoft Corp. executive complained that when it came to the search-engine wars with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, the company’s Bing was never more than a bargaining chip to Apple Inc.”
Search Engine Journal: Creating A Simple WordPress Plugin With 6 AI Chatbots. “I tested six AI chatbots by creating a WordPress plugin. Find out if ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, Claude, Code Llama, and Llama 2 completed the task.”
Reuters: Australia to require AI-made child abuse material be removed from search results. “Australia will make search engines like Google and Bing take steps to prevent the sharing of child sexual abuse material created by artificial intelligence, the country’s internet regulator said on Friday. A new code drafted by the industry giants at the government’s request will require search engines to ensure that such content is not returned in search results, e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.”
The Verge: Microsoft is using malware-like pop-ups in Windows 11 to get people to ditch Google. “I thought I had malware on my main Windows 11 machine this weekend. There I was minding my own business in Chrome before tabbing back to a game and wham a pop-up appeared asking me to switch my default search engine to Microsoft Bing in Chrome. Stunningly, Microsoft now thinks it’s ok to shove a pop-up in my face above my apps and games just because I dare to use Chrome instead of Microsoft Edge.”
Search Engine Land: Bing Chat now works on Chrome, Google’s browser. “Bing Chat now works in Chrome, Google’s web browser. Microsoft initially launched Bing Chat to work only on its own browser, Edge. Then Microsoft began testing Bing Chat support on other browsers, such as Chrome and Safari, but it was not fully available to all users.”
AFP: Microsoft’s Bing, LinkedIn vows more ads transparency. “Microsoft will provide more information on targeted adverts and protect users against any new risks from artificial intelligence, the company vowed Friday, as stringent EU rules on tech platforms enter into force. Internet giants must now enforce the milestone EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which demands they protect users online from harmful content and be more transparent about their algorithms.”
The Verge: Microsoft says listing the Ottawa Food Bank as a tourist destination wasn’t the result of ‘unsupervised AI’. “The ‘human oversight’ curating algorithmic content on MSN somehow missed a list of tourist hot spots that put the food bank at number three.’
Search Engine Land: The new Bing has failed to take any market share from Google after six months. “When the new Bing launched, it felt like the dawn of an exciting new era in search. Microsoft seemed to have a legitimate chance to erode some of Google’s dominance and become a truly worthy competitor to Google, thanks to its new conversational and generative AI take on search. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened.”
Techdirt: Techdirt Has Been Deleted From Bing And DuckDuckGo. “A few months ago, Jack Yan pointed out to me that if they did a search for Techdirt on DuckDuckGo, it showed only one single link which was (bizarrely) to a random story from like eight years ago. There were literally no other results for Techdirt. I replicated it, but was travelling, and by the time I went back to write about it a few days later, everything seemed back to normal (in the interim there were a few days where it just found a couple hundred Techdirt posts). Jack wrote a short blog post on his own site about it. This morning, however, someone alerted me to the fact that DuckDuckGo currently shows zero results for Techdirt. Not even some random old article. Zero. None. Zilch.”
