Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s VP for Modern Life, Search, and Devices, claims that one month after the introduction of its assistant AI, Bing has surpassed 100 million daily active users. He claimed that the business is completely cognizant of the fact that it is still only “a small, low, single digit share player,” but hey, there was a time when Bing wasn’t even brought up in discussion. Even those who have never used it before are now depending on it for their searches after the tech behemoth launched its next-generation version: One-third of Bing’s everyday active consumers, according to Mehdi, are brand-new to the search engine.
“We see this appeal of the new Bing as a validation of our view that search is due for a reinvention and of the unique value proposition of combining Search + Answers + Chat + Creation in one experience,” the VP said.
In addition to seeing a boost in numbers, Microsoft is also apparently enjoying a growth in engagement, with more people conducting more searches. The company credits two factors for that particular victory, the first being Edge’s growth in usage, most likely aided by the addition of Bing’s chat AI as a new feature. It also said that the introduction of its Prometheus AI model made Bing’s search results more relevant, so people have been using — or at least trying out — the search engine more.
Apparently, around one third of Bing’s daily preview users have been using its chat AI for their queries every day. On average, Microsoft is seeing three chats per session, with over 45 million chats since it introduced the new Bing. Further, in 15 percent of all chat sessions, people have been using Bing to generate new content. The launch of Bing’s AI chatbot on mobile has propelled the search engine to a new level of popularity, as well, and has led to a six-time increase in daily active users from before it became available.
By integrating an AI chatbot into Bing earlier this year, Microsoft gave its search engine the weapon it needs to be able to compete against Google. That said, Google does have plans to launch a chatbot of its own and introduced a chat AI called Bard last month. Bard spouted misinformation during its unofficial debut, but Google is working with employees to improve the chatbot’s responses before it becomes available.
