Microsoft has launched Bing Generative Search, its answer to Google's AI-powered search experience.
Following a pilot in July, Bing Generative Search began rolling out to all U.S. users this morning, although it is still in development. The easiest way to invoke this is to search for “Bing Generative Search” in Bing. Microsoft also said it would introduce an option to more easily launch Bing Generative Search for “informational queries.”
Bing Generative Search is based on a variety of AI models that aggregate information on the web and generate summaries in response to search queries. For example, when a user searches for “What is a Spaghetti Western?”, Bing Generative Search provides an overview of the genre's history and examples, along with links to sources.
Similar to Google's similar AI summaries feature, you have the option to ignore AI-generated summaries for traditional search results from your search pages.
“Bing Generative Search does more than just find answers,” Microsoft said in a blog post. “Instead, it understands search queries, reviews millions of information sources, dynamically matches content, and generates search results on the fly.”
Image credit: Bing
Microsoft claims that Bing Generative Search, an evolution of the AI-generated chat answers it launched on Bing in February 2023, will more reliably meet the intent of users' queries. But much has been written about how AI-generated search results are wrong.
Google's AI Overview is infamous for suggesting putting glue on pizza. Arc Search told one of its reporters that the amputated toe will eventually regrow. Genspark recommends several weapons that could be used to kill someone. Perplexity also plagiarized articles written by news outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg, and Forbes without providing credit or attribution.
AI-generated summaries can cannibalize traffic to source sites. In fact, they're already happening, and one study found that Google's AI overview can negatively impact around 25% of a publisher's traffic by de-emphasizing article links.
In July, Microsoft promised to “take a deep look at how generative search impacts traffic to publishers” and said it had preliminary data on Bing Generative Search.[maintained] Number of clicks to your website. ” However, the company did not reveal any new information about its research today.
Of course, given Google's huge dominance in the search market, any changes to the Bing experience are guaranteed to have a smaller impact than Google's moves. According to Statista, as of September 2024, Google had an 81.95% share of the global search market, compared to 10.51% for Bing.