Excitement has been building around Microsoft’s plan to enhance its search engine, Bing, with AI-powered capabilities, similar to OpenAI‘s ChatGPT. The news has sparked a surge in the popularity of the Bing app, propelling it to the top of the App Store charts for the first time in years. In the US, the app has skyrocketed to the number 12 spot among all free iPhone apps. At the same time, Microsoft’s Edge browser is now the number 3 utility app. According to estimates from data.ai, new downloads of the Bing app have increased tenfold globally. 

Microsoft

This shows that there is clear consumer demand for these AI-powered experiences, and users are eager to try new search engines and browsers to gain access. Yesterday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about the company’s plans for the new Bing.com, including OpenAI’s language model integration with the company’s services. This new addition will provide users with a ChatGPT-like experience within the search engine, allowing them to converse with an AI chatbot for more complex queries and to assist in content creation tasks, like writing a LinkedIn post. Microsoft also unveiled a new version of its Edge web browser with the same AI features built into the sidebar for easy access.

Although the new Bing is now available, it is currently in a limited preview phase, and users must join a waitlist to try the new AI features. Microsoft has stated that millions of users will be invited from the waitlist over the next few weeks. The company has also come up with a way for users to move up the waitlist by setting Microsoft’s search as the default on their PC and scanning a QR code to install the Microsoft Bing app on their smartphone. This push from Microsoft clearly implies the company’s intentions of getting ahead of its competition, especially Google. This has clearly inspired the rapid climb of the app up the App Store charts.

The Bing app’s sudden rise in popularity demonstrates the demand for AI and the potential threat to Google. Google currently pays Apple billions each year to be the default search engine in Safari, but if a significant number of consumers switch to another web search app like Bing or Edge to try out the new AI capabilities, Google could lose market share on one of the largest platforms to browse the web.

Although the Edge app hasn’t seen the same rapid climb as Bing, it has now reached number 3 on the US App Store’s Top Charts for Utilities, up from number 7 on Monday. More specific data on the total new installs may become available in the coming weeks, but one thing is very apparent – Microsoft is banking on the hype behind Artificial Intelligence, and this might be the company’s best strategy to make Bing relevant as a search engine again.

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