We’re in the end times now. Bing is actually growing.
In a blog post, Microsoft announced that Bing, its search engine, has now passed over 100 million daily active users. The company noted the million+ people that have signed up for the Bing Preview featuring OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology and said that over a third of people in the preview are new to the search engine.
The company also said that it is experiencing growth in searches being made by users. Microsoft contributes this to the growing installations of Microsoft Edge, its web browser, and improvements to its core search technology.
Two factors are driving trial and usage. One is Microsoft Edge continues to grow in usage as it has done for the last seven quarters based on the quality of our browser. We expect new capabilities, like having Bing search and create in the Edge sidebar, will bolster further growth.
The second factor driving trial and usage is that our core web search ranking has taken several significant jumps in relevancy due to the introduction of the Prometheus model so our Bing search quality is at an all-time high.
Bing’s new Chat feature, powered by OpenAI, seems to be one of the big driver for new users to the search engine. According to Microsoft, “roughly one third of daily preview users are using Chat daily. We’re seeing on average, roughly three chats per session with more than 45 million total chats since the preview began. And 15 percent of Chat sessions are people using Bing to generate new content demonstrating we are extending search to creativity.” The company also noted that the Bing mobile app is also seeing a six times increase in engagement after bringing the new AI-powered Chat feature to the app.
The announcement comes within a week of Microsoft adding conversation style to Bing and bringing the search engine to the taskbar in Windows 11.
