Continuing to deliver new AI innovation in Bing and Edge this week

It’s only been 100 days since Microsoft introduced the world to a new era of search powered by AI. In that time, we’ve continuously shipped new features that add real value based on our preview testers’ feedback. Our goal and focus remain the same – to provide the innovations that transform search for everyone, whether you’re an existing fan or trying Bing for the first time.

Today, we’re taking the next steps in this journey with new mobile-first experiences that match our desktop capabilities and bring visual updates across Bing.
 

New features rolling out this week


New features announced in early May are beginning to flight. This week, the Bing experience on both desktop and mobile will get much richer with videos, Knowledge Cards, graphs, better formatting, and social sharing capabilities all coming to chat.

Also, chat history is rolling out across desktop and mobile. With chat history now on mobile, you can simply hit the clock-inspired icon at the top of your existing chat to see a list of recent activity. This feature will also be available on desktop soon.

There’s never been more excitement for Bing mobile; we’re seeing an 8x increase in daily downloads since launching the new Bing as people worldwide incorporate their AI copilot on the go. To make those mobile experiences even richer, we’re introducing new features coming soon to the Bing, SwiftKey, Edge, and Skype apps. 


Bing app updates


•    Add a Bing widget to your home screen – Widgets are a great way to get timely information at a glance, or directly access features in your favorite apps. This week, we’re launching a new Bing Chat widget that you can add to your iOS or Android home screen (quick setup instructions here and here). Soon, you’ll be able to click the Bing icon to land directly in the new Bing Chat experience, or click the microphone icon to verbally ask a question. 

•    Continue mobile convo on desktop – Another common request is to enable continuous conversations across platforms, and we’re excited to announce that it’s available today. The ability to continue desktop conversations on mobile, and vice versa, means you can ask Bing to write you a recipe for a spring salad recipe, then continue the conversation at the grocery store when they’re out of asparagus and you need a substitute, then learn more about fava bean preparation back at home.

This feature is flighting and will be available to everyone on iOS and Android within the next week. To access this feature, click on the answer on desktop, then select phone icon in the options menu to view the QR Code. Scan it to open on your phone. 

•    Voice and multilingual chat improvements – We’re excited to bring the new Bing to new users around the world. We’ve increased the country and language support for voice input, and improved the quality for non-English chats, so now you can choose from a variety of languages and voices to tailor experience to your tastes and needs.
 

SwiftKey app updates


•    Compose messages with AI – SwiftKey is your go-to keyboard that puts AI-powered Bing at your fingertips; you can use it to search and chat with Bing from within your favorite mobile apps, as well as change the tone or reframe your messages before you hit send. 

Today we’re excited to extend these capabilities to include the Compose feature in SwiftKey, which will now draft text for you according to the parameters you suggest – not just the subject matter but also the message tone, format, and length. If you dread paperwork and administrative tasks, let the Compose feature do the heavy lifting for you. You can use it to, for example, write an email to a service provider asking for a resolution on an issue. Quickly edit the drafted email to ensure details are correct, and then send it and continue with your day.

This feature will begin rolling out today; use it by clicking the Bing icon in the ribbon above the SwiftKey keyboard. It will be available to all users across iOS and Android within the next two weeks. This functionality is also available on desktop via the Edge sidebar

•    Access Translator right from the keyboard – We’re also excited to announce that our AI-powered translator is now built right into the SwiftKey keyboard, making staying in touch with friends and family worldwide even easier. Like Compose, all you need to do is click the Bing icon in the ribbon above the SwiftKey keyboard. From there, click Translate, and you can choose the languages to translate to and from. It includes translation in any language Bing supports. Type or paste the text, and it will drop the translated text right into the message field for you to send. It’s already available on Android and will be available to all users, including iOS, worldwide within the next week.

•    New Tones – The recently-launched SwiftKey Tone feature has now added two new Tones – Witty and Funny! Together these AI-powered features let you draft the right message, with the appropriate tone, for everything from tweaking a funny one-liner to drafting an important work email from scratch.
 

Edge app updates


•    Contextual Chat - On Edge mobile, you will soon be able to ask questions in Bing Chat related to content on the mobile page you are viewing, or ask Bing to summarize it. Say you are looking through recipes for your next dinner gathering. With Bing Chat in the Edge mobile app, you can simply tap on the Chat icon on the bottom navigation bar and ask what wine would pair best with the recipe you’re viewing. You can also ask follow-up questions until you have exactly what you need.  With this feature, while reading an article or document online, you can also tap the Bing Chat icon and ask Chat to summarize the content for you – so you can get info quicker while you’re on the go!

•    Selected text actions – Bing will soon be able to quickly provide deep context for any text in the Edge mobile app. For example, you may be reading the news and are unsure about a specific historical event being referenced. Simply highlight the text in question and select Bing from the options menu. This will open a conversation with Bing, which you can use to explain more about the topic with cited sources and clearly summarized text. 

Both of these new experiences will become available to all users worldwide soon.
 

Skype app updates


•    Access the new Bing in all group chats – Now every group chat in Skype can include the new AI-powered Bing. For example, if you have a long existing conversation with friends brainstorming places of interest, you could ask Bing to list all the options discussed and generate new similar ideas. All you have you do is tag @Bing directly – no need for participants to search for Bing to add it to their contacts. This feature is rolling out to users currently and will be available to everyone within a few days.


This is just the start of the next 100 days of AI-powered Bing. The next stop is Build, where we will share more about how developers can take advantage of the Bing AI platform to broaden their reach and bring new benefit to everyone across PC and mobile. 

-    Divya Kumar, Global Head of Marketing | Search & AI