Microsoft’s Bing is enjoying the spotlight for the first time in a decade after it released a GPT-powered interface last month. But the tech giant has so far been cautious about the pace at which it is making the new Bing offering — powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 tech — available to users. But it appears Bing is bringing those walls down.
Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, appears to have lifted the waitlist from the new Bing, ostensibly allowing anyone to gain instant access to the new experience. Windows Central, which first spotted this change, said users don’t have to wait to try out the new Bing anymore. TechCrunch tested this with a few email IDs (both new and old) and got access instantly. However, not all email IDs we tested got access instantly.
Image Credits: Screenshot by TechCrunch
While the new Bing’s landing page still shows the typical “Join the Waitlist” button, you can sign in and get access instantly. The company didn’t specify if they are getting rid of the waitlist entirely, but in a statement, Microsoft said that it is running various experiments to onboard more users.
“During this preview period, we are running various tests which may accelerate access to the new Bing for some users. We remain in preview and you can sign up at Bing.com,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
Microsoft is holding an event called “reinvent productivity with AI” later Thursday at 11 am ET. While today’s agenda is limited to introducing AI-powered tools for Microsoft 356 (Office) and Dynamic 365 — the company’s Salesforce competitor — it won’t be surprising if there is an announcement related to Bing as well.
The Seattle-based company is racing to integrate the AI-powered chatbot into many of its services. Last month, Microsoft introduced the GPT-4-powered bot to Windows 11’s taskbar. Earlier this week, Edge browser’s stable version got the Bing AI chatbot feature.
The OpenAI’s tech is proving to be a hit for Bing, which recently reported reaching 100 million daily active users. This is expected given the hype around AI-powered chatbots and how it has attracted tens of millions of users who wish to give it a whirl. After people were able to “jailbreak” the chatbot into saying problematic things, Microsoft started testing various restrictions on the conversations. Earlier this week it raised the limit to 15 turns in a conversation and 150 messages per day.
The story was updated with a statement from Microsoft.