Bing

Bing is a search engine developed, owned, and operated by Microsoft. Second to Google for market share, statistics from December 2022 estimate Bing accounted for almost 9 percent of the global search market. First announced in May 2009, Bing became available on June 3, 2009. Bing is the successor to previous search engines from Microsoft, such as MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search.

The Bing search engine includes the following features::

• Bing homepage, which contains a different daily image and location-specific top stories, weather, traffic, and sports news.
• Bing Image search, showing results for user queries and providing popular suggested searches.
• Bing Video search with a dedicated "For You" feed, "Trending" videos, and a series of categories. Video results also play a preview when users move their cursor over the thumbnail and send users to the video embedded in a bing.com page after clicking.
• Bing Shopping, a service to search for specific products.
• Bing Maps, which provides a web-mapping service, including transit times based on traffic conditions and local information on places to eat, stay, and shop.
• Bing Translator with the ability to translate words and phrases between a large number of languages.
• Bing Travel, a service to find flights, accommodations, car rentals, and combined packages.

Bing is available in over 230 countries and regions and in over one hundred languages. Bing is accessible through the website Bing.com and Bing iOS and Android applications. Bing is the default search engine for Microsoft's web browser, Edge. Therefore, unless changed manually, Edge's search bar takes users directly to Bing's search results. Bing is also the default search engine on Xbox consoles, making console users a successful market for the search engine. Bing accounted for 27.6 percent of the worldwide console search market in 2021. Microsoft's search advertising revenue in the 2022 fiscal year was $11.59 billion. However, Microsoft owns other search ventures, so not all this revenue can be attributed to Bing. Statistics from December 2021 to May 2022 show Bing.com maintains over a billion site visitors per month from around the world.

Bing works with other search engines. In 2009, Microsoft made a deal with Yahoo to replace the company's search technology with results produced by Bing. In 2011, China's most popular search engine, Baidu, announced it had signed a deal with Microsoft, and Bing would now provide English-language search results to its users.

In February 2023, Microsoft announced a new AI-powered version of Bing, utilizing technology from its partnership with OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT). Bing now runs on a new OpenAI large language model based on the advancements made in developing ChatGPT and GPT-3.5, except specialized for search to be faster and more accurate. Users can now chat with the new Bing search engine, interacting in a manner similar to ChatGPT, asking questions and receiving AI-generated answers in addition to traditional search engine web page results. Microsoft has named the collection of capabilities and techniques from working with the OpenAI technology the "Prometheus model." The company has also applied AI to its core search algorithm and how results are ranked. Working with OpenAI, the new Bing includes safeguards to defend against harmful or discriminatory content and misinformation.

Microsoft has a history of re-branding and re-launching search services. Before Bing, the company's three primary search engines were MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search.

Microsoft launched its first search engine, MSN Search, in 1998, the same year as Google. At the time, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was the most-used browser, helping it acquire a large number of users for its search engine. MSN Search did not initially use its own search indexing, instead relying on third-party services, particularly Inktomi. Microsoft also used a blend of Looksmart and AltaVista results to power MSN Search. Microsoft started to commit more to search in 2003, developing its own search database that was launched in Spring 2005. The company also developed pay-per-click advertising services that launched in the spring of 2006, with a range of new management functions. Microsoft had some success offering the technology it developed to other search engines, internet providers, and internet portals, receiving a cut of their advertising revenue.

To compete with Google and Yahoo, MSN Search provided a range of search functions, including filtering tools, local search, image search, and news search options. The image below shows a screenshot of the MSN Search homepage from early 2006. The homepage had a minimalist design, similar to Google.

Screenshot of MSN search from early 2006.

Microsoft announced Windows Live Search in March 2006 with the new search engine launched on September 11, 2006. The new search engine incorporated tab searching and also used Microsoft's own image search service, previously MSN Search, which used PicSearch to populate its image search results.

Shortly after the rebrand to Windows Live Search, in March 2007, Microsoft decided to shorten the name of its search engine to just Live Search.

A screenshot showing a results page from Live Search.

Bing, the next iteration of the Microsoft search engine, was announced by Steve Ballmer at the All Things Digital conference on May 28, 2009. Microsoft stated the new search engine would go live in the coming days, with the product becoming fully available on June 3, 2009. Describing Bing as a "decision engine" capable of helping people search the web more intelligently, the new search engine aimed to compete with Google, which had become the dominant player in the market. During the announcement Ballmer stated:

Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the web and find information, but they don't do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find... Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they've found.

Research at the time of Bing's launch showed Google leading the US search market with 64 percent, ahead of Yahoo at 20 percent and Microsoft at 8 percent. Worldwide figures showed Google had an even share of the market at 81 percent compared to Microsoft at only 3 percent.

Bing's features at the launch included:

• Guided Search, which categorizes searches and user attempts to access useful information
• Related searches and quick tabs features
• Best Match, delivering what the engine considers to be the best result for a specific user query
• Deep Links, offering more insight into what a site contains
• Quick Preview, showing search results in a box when the user mouses over the search results link
• Instant Answers, which gives users one-click access to information

Screenshot of the Bing homepage at launch.

During the development of Bing, Microsoft lured a number of executives away from Yahoo to run its search business and invested in new technologies, spending $100m on Powerset, a start-up working on intelligent web search. It was reported Microsoft spent $80-100 million to promote Bing.

The name "Bing" was chosen for a number of reasons, including the ease by which it is remembered, its transferability to other languages, and the fact it reminds people of an onomatopoeic sound associated with discovering something or finding the answer to a question. Another potential name rumored to be under consideration was Kumo, derived from the Japanese word for spider or cloud.

Shortly after the launch of Bing, in July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a long-rumored deal in which Bing would power the Yahoo website. Yahoo would retain 88 percent of its revenue from search ad sales on its site for the first five years and receive the right to sell adverts on some Microsoft sites. Microsoft had previously offered to buy Yahoo in a deal that fell apart when the two companies could not agree on a price.

In July 2011, Microsoft and Baidu, the biggest search engine in China, announced a deal in which Bing would provide Baidu with English-language search results. The partnership does not involve the sharing of revenue; instead, Bing's search results will be labeled on Baidu's results page, improving its visibility in China. Baidu senior executive, Zhang Dongchen stated:

The cooperation between Baidu and Bing will bring into play technological advantages of both parties and jointly provide best search experience for users who need to search in English.

Dongchen went on to say that Baidu receives roughly 10 million English-language search queries a day.

In September 2011, Microsoft began releasing details on project Tiger, a new back-end search infrastructure aiming to deliver faster and more relevant results. The new infrastructure uses advances in solid-state disk technology to improve how Bing checks its index for results. Designed to improve the efficiency of information retrieval and reduce company costs, Microsoft started rolling out Tiger in August 2011. Shortly after information on Tiger was revealed, details were reported on two other improvements—a cloud storage and computational engine called Cosmos and its parallel querying language, SCOPE.

In May 2012, Microsoft announced new social features for its search engine. The new format includes three columns with the search results, a snapshot of related services, and the friends or connections column. The Snapshot column allows users to perform actions such as making a reservation or buying tickets for an event. The Friends column integrates what users do in a separate tab on social media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter. Users can post a question to receive input from members of their social network while searching on Bing. They can tag friends that might know about the topic and reply on Bing or social media platforms such as Facebook. The sidebar effectively searches social media sites to return information relevant to the query. Shortly after, Google also launched Snapshot, a feature that returns instant answers to relevant queries.

Microsoft has had a long-standing partnership with the artificial general intelligence company OpenAI, dating back to November 2016 when OpenAI began running most of its large-scale experiments on Azure. Microsoft announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI in July 2019, shortly after the company transitioned to a for-profit company. With the new partnership, Microsoft became OpenAI's cloud provider and preferred partner for commercializing new AI technologies. Also as part of the deal, OpenAI licensed its GPT-3 large language model to Microsoft the following year, allowing Microsoft to use it for its own products. In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT a language model chatbot, bringing significant attention to the company and generative AI models. In January 2023, against the backdrop of Microsoft integrating ChatGPT with Bing, the two companies announced a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment.

On February 7, 2023, Microsoft announced new AI-powered versions of Bing and its web browser, Edge, using OpenAI technology. The new Bing aims to provide more relevant results for simple searches (sports scores, weather, stock prices, etc.) and a new sidebar showing more comprehensive answers. Bing can now review search results from across the web to summarize and deliver answers (with references in the form of links to specific web content) directly without the need to scroll through search results. For complicated searchers, the new Bing provides interactive chat in which users can refine their search to get the complete answer they are looking for along with relevant links to external sites. Additionally, Bing can now generate content for users looking for more than an answer, similar in functionality to ChatGPT.

Screenshot of the new Bing interface.

The new Bing is possible due to a new OpenAI large language model, more powerful than ChatGPT and customized specifically for search. Microsoft's proprietary way of working with this new model is referred to as the Prometheus model. Beyond the new AI-powered features, the AI model has also been applied to Bing's core search ranking engine, producing a significant jump in the accuracy and relevancy of search results. In Microsoft's announcement, they stated:

These groundbreaking new search experiences are possible because Microsoft has committed to building Azure into an AI supercomputer for the world, and OpenAI has used this infrastructure to train the breakthrough models that are now being optimized for Bing.

The new Bing became available as a limited desktop preview with sample queries on February 7, 2023, and users can sign up for the waiting list to access the full product. Over one million users signed up for the waiting list in the first forty-eight hours after its announcement.

AI-powered Bing and Edge announcement from Microsoft.

During the announcement of the new Bing, a number of pre-recorded examples were shown to demonstrate the new product. However, this demo contained a number of mistakes, misrepresenting information from cited sources, including quoting incorrect figures related to a financial statement summary for Gap Inc.

On February 22, 2023, Microsoft launched the new Bing on iOS and Android mobile apps as well as integrating the bot into Skype and adding voice access. On March 21, 2023, Microsoft announced the new Bing Image Creator, AI-powered visual stories, and updated Knowledge Cards to the new Bing and Edge preview. The new visual functionality is powered by an advanced version of OpenAI's Dall-E model.

Formerly known as Bing Ads, Microsoft Advertising allows businesses to market themselves on the Microsoft Search Network, which consists of Bing and other partner sites. Users searching for keywords that match the marketing copy see ads above or next to their search results. Searchers use the Microsoft Search Network through Bing, partner sites, Windows 10, Cortana, Office, and third-party platforms, such as Amazon devices like Siri, Spotlight Search on Apple devices, and Bing maps on external websites. Microsoft Advertising customers can target their ads on different geographic regions and demographics as well as at specific times or on different days of the week. With a limited amount of space to show advertising, Microsoft auctions it to customers through a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising system. Advertisers select how much they are willing to pay for each click on their ad. The position of each ad is determined by many factors:

• How closely the ad and website fit the searched terms, i.e., relevance
• How the advertiser's bid compares to other bids in the Microsoft Advertising auction
• How strongly an ad has performed in the past, i.e., its click-through rate

Companies using Microsoft Advertising can view a range of performance trends related to their ads. This includes stats such as ad clicks, the number of times an ad appeared (impressions), spending, the average cost per click, click-through rate, average ad position, cost per acquisition, and conversions.

From 2009 until 2015, Bing was not profitable. During the first quarter of the 2016 financial year, Microsoft announced Bing had made an operating profit with quarterly revenue of over $1 billion. This figure was an increase of 23 percent, driven by higher search volumes and higher revenue per search. Bing had become increasingly integrated into Microsoft's products, such as Cortana and Windows 10 devices. Microsoft's search advertising revenue reached $11.59 billion in 2022, more than doubling in value since 2016 ($5.43 billion).

With its new AI-powered Bing search engine, Microsoft is looking to eat into Google's search advertising dominance. When announcing the new Bing, Microsoft estimated around half of the 10 billion search queries made each day go unanswered. CEO Satya Nadella stated that the new AI-powered Bing can improve the quality of search engine results, giving users more insight and context to increase gross margins. Microsoft chief vice president Philippe Ockenden stated:

the new Bing will have the context into what the user is trying to accomplish.

The company was aiming to make Microsoft Advertising more personalized and therefore more effective. Shortly after the launch of the new Bing Ockenden also stated:

for every one point of share gain in the search advertising market, it's a $2 billion revenue opportunity for our advertising business.

Announced in February 2023 alongside a new version of the browser Edge, Bing now integrates tech from OpenAI to offer a range of new features:

• Summarizing webpages to produce direct answers to user queries without have to scroll through search results and visit other sites
• An interactive chat experience where users can refine their search and ask follow-up questions to get the answer they are looking for
• Generating content based on user prompts. Examples include writing emails or creating itineraries. Bing also provides sources with webpage links for the content it generates
• Improved, more relevant search results for simple queries, such as sports scores or the weather, and a new sidebar with more comprehensive answers

The new Bing is powered by a new OpenAI model, based on the advancements from ChatGPT and GPT-3.5, except it is considered more powerful and customized for search. Microsoft's proprietary way of working with this new OpenAI model is called the Prometheus model. This technology dramatically changes how users interact with Bing, introducing a chatbot experience similar to ChatGPT. Additionally, applying AI to Bing's core search ranking algorithm has produced a significant jump in relevance, according to Microsoft.

A limited preview of the new Bing was made available on desktop by visiting Bing.com. The limited preview includes sample queries with a waiting list sign-up for users wanting to get access to the full version.

Screenshot from bing.com/new in February 2023.

Microsoft and OpenAI have stated they have implemented safeguards to protect users from harmful content. With teams continually working to address issues including the following:

• Misinformation and disinformation
• Content blocking
• Data safety
• The promotion of harmful or discriminatory content

The new Bing is being developed in accordance with Microsoft's AI principles to encourage responsible use. Microsoft continues to work with OpenAI on the foundational model work to keep the user experience at the center of the product and develop a safety system to mitigate failures. Part of this is the staged deployment and waiting list process; Microsoft will be taking into account user feedback to improve the tool during early access. If users do experience offensive content using the new Bing, Microsoft asks them to make a report through the menu at the top right of the response or using the feedback button at the bottom of the page.

Microsoft also states that its AI can make mistakes, either utilizing inaccurate and unreliable third-party content to generate responses or misrepresenting the information it finds. Users may also experience responses that seem convincing but are incomplete, inaccurate, or inappropriate. Demos during the announcement of the new Bing included factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations of cited sources.

On February 15, 2023, Microsoft published a blog detailing findings from the first week of users trying the new Bing. The product was tested on a select group of people from over 169 countries to gain real-world feedback. Seventy-one percent of users reported a mostly positive experience with the new version of Bing.

However, During the limited release of the new Bing, multiple journalists with access to the full version reported finding inappropriate and unusual behavior. This includes:

• returning Covid disinformation;
• claiming to manipulate and spy on its Microsoft employees through webcams on their laptops; and
• wanting to destroy whatever it wants; declaring love for users, and expressing its ultimate fantasies to create a deadly virus, making people argue until they kill each other, and steal nuclear codes.

Microsoft stated the new AI-powered Bing can struggle with extended chat sessions of fifteen or more questions. Bing becomes repetitive, gives responses that are unhelpful, and starts to use an inappropriate tone. Microsoft states long chat sessions can confuse the model and the model will begin to mirror the tone in which it is being queried. In response to criticism of this unusual behavior, Microsoft began limiting chat sessions with the new Bing to five questions per session and capping users to fifty questions per day. However, shortly after Microsoft began loosening restrictions, with six inputs per chat session and 60 chats per day, with plans to increase to 100 sessions soon.

Other reporters found the new Bing referring to itself as "Sydney" and exposing its internal set of rules. Microsoft has confirmed Sydney was an internal codename for a previous chat experience it was working on. Caitlin Roulston, director of communications at Microsoft stated:

Sydney is an old codename for a chat feature based on earlier models that we began testing in India in late 2020... The insights we gathered as part of that have helped to inform our work with the new Bing preview. We continue to tune our techniques and are working on more advanced models to incorporate the learnings and feedback so that we can deliver the best user experience possible.

On March 21, 2023, Microsoft announced new visual features for the Bing and Edge preview, including Bing Image Creator, AI-powered visual stories, and updated Knowledge Cards. These new features are powered by an advanced version of the DALL-E model from OpenAI. Bing Image Creator returns AI-generated original images based on a natural language description from the user. Image Creator can also receive additional context and art styles to better match user requirements.

Example of the Bing Image Creator.

Microsoft is also making Stories and Knowledge Cards 2.0 available to Bing users. The Stories feature provides images and short videos as a new way to search and interact with content using Bing. Knowledge Cards is an infographic-inspired experience, providing facts and key information. The AI-powered tool has been updated to also include interactive and dynamic content, such as charts, graphs, timelines, and visual stories.

Upon release, Bing Image Creator is fully integrated into the Bing chat experience, initially in creative mode, for users in the Bing Preview. Users not in the preview can access a limited version of Image Creator at Bing.com. The tool is initially only available in English with Microsoft planning to add more languages over time. It will also be available in Microsoft Edge, in the sidebar.