Bing AI is officially coming to Chrome, taking on Google Bard on its own turf
Bing AI has been a big selling point for Bing Search and Microsoft’s Edge browser over the past six months, and it’s been announced that it’s coming to Google’s rival web browser, Chrome.
Microsoft has made a noticeable effort to get people over to its own products, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see it give Chrome users the ability to access ChatGPT-powered Bing AI from within Chrome.
Microsoft tried to capitalize on the interest around ChatGPT by integrating the technology into its products such as Bing Search, Edge, and Windows 11. Microsoft’s use of ChatGPT technology in Bing AI’s chatbot received a lot of positive attention when it launched, something which is the rather unloved Bing search. engine doesn’t get much of it, so it made sense that Microsoft wanted to keep these acclaimed features exclusive to its own products.
A new AI chatbot appears for Chrome
However, recently some Chrome users noticed a version of Bing AI they could use in the Chrome browser, and it seems to be rolling out to more people now. According to a post from Microsoft Bing Blogs (an official release notes blog), Bing Chat, and Bing Chat Enterprise (a version of Bing Chat intended for business, education, and other business purposes) are supported in the Chrome desktop browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
While this opens up Bing AI’s availability to a total of…two browsers (there are many more, of course), it’s still a big step. Chrome has the most users of all browsers, and Microsoft’s desire to convince users of other browsers to adopt Edge may take longer than hoped. Thanks to this move, Bing AI is immediately accessible to a very significant number of people. In the aforementioned blog post, Microsoft explains that it is working on expanding this access to other desktop browsers and mobile browsers.
More new moves from Microsoft
Other updates to Bing Search include added search page templates for certain topics, more AI generation integration in suggestions, and a cleaner, richer results page design.
There is also extra access to Bing Chat within Swiftkey, so that a user can use it thirty times a day without logging in. Swiftkey is Microsoft’s intelligent keyboard app available for both Android and iOS devices.
It will be much more convenient to be able to use Bing Chat’s capabilities while staying in the Chrome browser (which is personally my favorite choice), as you won’t have to switch browsers to access it. This also provides Bing Chat with a greater opportunity to improve its own chat technology by communicating with a greater number of people, potentially improving its conversational ability.
A good move for the user’s choice
Interestingly, you can now try out ChatGPT, Bing AI, Google Bard, and other AI chatbots like Claude, all in Chrome. Until now you could also do this in the Edge browser, but now this pack of AI chatbots is also available for any Chrome user to compare and choose from. I think this is a smart move by Microsoft: it brings the AI challenge to Google’s backyard (or rather, the front).
Users like options, especially when it comes to things like functionality, aesthetic preferences, and especially security-related aspects like safety and privacy. Giving users more choice about how they access your technology is always welcome, and Microsoft could see an influx of new Bing users who want to explore the AI’s capabilities without having to switch web browsers.