If you prefer using Safari or Chrome or any non-Edge browser on your phone, you’ll soon be able to still access Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing Chat assistant.
Microsoft’s next-generation Bing tool has been around for about half a year now. The AI-powered chat assistant came onto the scene and, since then, it seems that everyone is all about building chat assistants into their browsers, apps, and whatever else they can get their hands on. Even some fast food restaurants are trying to use AI and chat assistants in drive-throughs.
Despite Bing somehow becoming a force to reckon with after what seems like a life of obscurity compared to Google Chrome, Bing Chat, the AI-powered chat assistant, has been mostly exclusive to the company’s Edge browser and app. While the company recently announced that the chat assistant would be made available for Safari and Chrome on the desktop, mobile was still unknown.
That changes today. In a blog post, the company celebrated the six months of its new AI-powered Bing but not only showcasing some of the highlights but also announcing some new and soon-to-come features. One of those announcements revealed that Bing Chat will be made available for third-party mobile browsers “soon.”
With so many new, useful features now a part of Bing, we’re excited to announce you can start experiencing the new AI-powered Bing in third-party browsers on web and mobile soon. This next step in the journey allows Bing to showcase the incredible value of summarized answers, image creation and more, to a broader array of people. You’ll get most of the great benefits of Bing and we’ll continue to optimize along the way to meet your needs across different browsers.
However, even though the AI-powered chat assistant will technically work on third-party browsers like Safari and Chrome, like the desktop, Microsoft is limiting the experience. According to the company, using Bing Chat with Edge on mobile will “unlock longer conversations, chat history, and more Bing features built right into the browser.”
In addition to making Bing Chat available to third-party mobile browsers, Microsoft announced that its chat assistant will now support multimodal visual search in chat, meaning that you can message Bing with a photo and then ask text-based questions about the image. Dark Mode is also coming to Bing Chat on the browser and mobile app, and Bing Chat Enterprise is launching for companies.
I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Bing Chat, but I’m glad the company is pushing this kind of technology forward. It’s gotten Google, and even Apple to a point, to pay more attention to how this kind of technology can benefit our lives. Bing! Of all things!
