It’s a fact: today, the search engine industry is completely dominated by Google. But now Bing, the Microsoft-owned engine, doesn’t want to be left behind in the race. After years of struggling to gain a foothold in the industry, Bing has taken a big step by plunging headlong into the world of artificial intelligence.
It is its new feature, Bing Chat, that has caught the attention of the technology world. Bing Chat uses GPT-4 and works as a conversational search engine. This means that we will only have to “chat” with Bing to solve our doubts.
Unlike ChatGPT, Bing Chat has access to the Internet, which allows it to provide more up-to-date responses. Today we will take a closer look at how we can use the new AI-powered Bing Chat and how it differs from ChatGPT.
How to use the new Bing
To start using the new Bing, you need to have Microsoft Edge and have an active Microsoft account with which you can sign in to the browser. When you open Edge, you will be signed in to Bing by default.
Now go to Bing.com and click on Chat (it will be located at the top of the screen). You can also click on the Try It or Learn More button to go directly to the chatbot.
Sign in to your Microsoft account
If you have not previously logged in, the browser will force you to do so to enter Bing chat mode. Any Microsoft email account (such as Outlook.com or Hotmail.com) or even the one you use to access services such as OneDrive or the Office suite can be used here. If you don’t have one, you can always create a new one using other email accounts such as Gmail or Yahoo! for example.
Get to know Bing Chat in depth
Bing Chat is a bit different from the most popular chatbot right now, ChatGPT. Although the questions you can ask are similar, the format of the answers and the style of the conversation is somewhat different.
- Text box: The bottom of the screen has a text area where you should enter your prompts for Bing Chat.
- New topic: When you click on New topic, Bing will delete the previous conversation and ask you to move to a new one.
- Information sources: As we said before, Bing works as a conversational engine. This means that although it does not give you answers in list format (as a normal search engine would), it gathers most of its answers from the web. When you get the answer to a question, Bing will also show the sources from which it got that information.
- Suggested questions: When you receive an answer from Microsoft Bing, it will also suggest additional questions. For example, if you ask Bing “What color are clouds?”, it may suggest the following questions “How are clouds formed?” or “What kind of clouds are there?”.
- Search or chat: The top left of the screen gives you the option to toggle between traditional search results or chatbot responses. Swap them at your convenience.
- Conversation style: Bing Chat offers three types of response, which are more creative, more balanced or more precise. Each option does exactly what it says: “more creative” will give you an original response, “more balanced” will give you a ChatGPT-like experience and “more precise” will give you clear and concise responses.
- Counter: When Bing answers a query within a conversation, you will see a number that will help you keep track of the answers you have received. Although Bing is free, it has a limit of 15 answers per conversation.
- Feedback button: Bing offers a section for users to provide suggestions and corrections.
- Microsoft Account: If you want to access your account information, just go to the top right of the screen.
How is Bing Chat different from ChatGPT?
Both Bing Chat and ChatGPT are chatbot systems based on artificial intelligence. Because of how they work, we can engage in a conversation with them using natural language. However,
- Bing Chat is a feature that is integrated into the Bing search engine. The advantage of Bing Chat over ChatGPT is that it uses a much more advanced linguistic model (GPT-4) and is connected to the Internet.
- The new Bing is the only way to use GPT-4 for free and Microsoft claims that integration with the latest model makes Bing more accurate and powerful than ChatGPT.
