Microsoft’s search engine that hardly anyone uses is now powered by ChatGPT’s immense brain power. But, it may not be enough to make it a success. Bing has only 9% of the global search engine market share, nine times more than DuckDuckGo, but it doesn’t have the name recognition or the widespread, hands-on experience that other software needs to be adopted.
When Bing arrived over 10 years after Google did and became a verb, it didn’t stand a chance. It didn’t help itself either by being a terrible search engine. Even with Microsoft Edge, a now great web browser that’s getting some ChatBot love, I still switched the address bar to Google Search instead of Bing.
Forget about improving the engine – Microsoft decided to take a different approach with Bing, introducing reward points for using it. Never tried ’em? Not to worry. Now, Bing has another shot to impress people, but it won’t be a walk in the park since Google also updated their search engine with the AI-powered Bard. The tech behind them isn’t the same – our Microsoft Bing vs Google Bard guide can explain all the details – but Microsoft has to make this work if they want to beat Google.
We’ve seen a real improvement in the Bing search engine lately, and it’s great. The results are much more useful than they were a few years ago, and although it’s not quite at Google-level yet, I’m finding that my frustration levels are lower. I’m often finding the information I’m looking for on the first page of results, which is awesome. Plus, the ChatGPT feature is really helpful for refining my search without having to start all over again. It’s also great at writing code!
That said, it can be hard to get people to recognize that this isn’t the same Bing they’re used to.