New Bing Chat AI is now available in Edge mobile and Skype

Not to be outshone by OpenAI, Microsoft is bringing ChatGPT-infused technology to Edge mobile and Skype. The company says that it will roll out testing on desktops first before moving to other platforms, including iOS and Android.

Services will look similar to before with the exception of the Bing icon at the bottom of the screen to start a chat session. Users, the technology giant says, will be able to ask any questions they like. The tool will then spit back answers in a similar manner to ChatGPT.

Microsoft’s decision to bring Bing to mobile is part of its plan to facilitate mobile AI. According to the platform, more than 64 per cent of searches occur on mobile phones, which is a significantly larger market than desktops. Tapping into these customers could help make the company’s search products more attractive to users.

Skype – another Microsoft property – will also be a beneficiary of new generative AI technology. The online video communication app will come with an option to see Bing’s opinion on topics you discuss. Microsoft says users will be able to add the AI to a conversation in the same way as any other contact. Bing will be able to present information to callers, create bullet points or texts based on the conversation, or let users generate simple, automated responses. For international users, the AI will also have the capacity to translate speech in real-time into more than 100 languages.

However, Microsoft’s AI attempts are facing challenges. In February, Bing limited the number of chat turns users could generate per session to six, following some bizarre and downright scary replies from its app. The firm also cut the total number of queries per day allowed on the platform to 60, limiting users.

These issues are reminiscent of the company’s attempt to create an AI chatbot called Tay that learned from users in 2016. The software was helpful at first but eventually turned into a genocidal, misogynistic Nazi after abuse by trolls. As before, Microsoft is looking to limit the potential for brand damage. It doesn’t want Bing Chat AI to provide users with biased, false, or misleading information, or any opinions that might conflict with the current cultural narrative.

There are also capacity problems. Given the computation expenses associated with generative language models, Microsoft is rationing users. The company is offering limited access to Skype, Bing, and Bing mobile at the moment, and says it will add more users in the coming weeks.

This move comes after more than a million people signed up for the service in just 48 hours. Unlike ChatGPT, Bing AI is trained on data after 2021 and can provide references and links to support all the claims it makes. It is also more search-orientated, serving the specific needs of the search market.

Bing AI is not the same as live chat software for website owners. It won’t yet allow companies to respond to queries automatically.