Back in May, as part of Google I/O, the internet search giant announced that it would be adding an AI overview to its search engine, even if its rollout remains a limited one. Now, it looks like Microsoft is doing the same with its own search engine. The company has started previewing Bing generative search for “a small percentage of user queries”.
In a blog post explaining the addition, the company showed what things will look like when applicable user queries are typed into the Bing search bar. Similar to Google’s, this results in Bing showing an AI-generated summary of a particular topic, looking like it’s been pulled straight out of a Copilot query. Granted, this does look a little longer than Google’s AI overview, though it could be a topic-specific example.
What’s different here though is that traditional search results are visible, albeit at the right side panel. We’ve given it a try for ourselves, and while some of the AI summary is there, it’s not as extensive as what Microsoft has shown in its blog post. There’s no side panel for normal search results either, as these are still under the summary block.
Like the Google AI summaries, it’s not clear when Microsoft will be making this change to Bing apply to everyone. When it happens though, one can hope that it’s either an opt-in option, or at least something that can be turned off.
(Source: Microsoft)
