The ‘Bing Chat’ feature from Microsoft has the potential to change the way we use the internet. The new Bing Chat experience, which is powered by GPT-4, was previously limited to use on Microsoft’s Edge browser and the Bing app, The extension will open up access to Microsoft’s AI chatbot, which is similar to ChatGPT, to a wider range of users as it was previously only available in Microsoft products like the Bing mobile app and Microsoft Edge browser.
But a recent TechCrunch story suggests the tech giant is now bringing the chatbot to Chrome and Safari.
“We are fighting access to Bing Chat in Safari and Chrome to select users as part of our testing on other browsers,” said Microsoft director of Communications, Caitlin Roulston, in an emailed statement. “We are excited to expand access to even more users once our standard testing procedures are complete.”
Bing AI Chatbot on Windows: Chrome Pop-up Offer and Browser Discrepancies
Those who were able to use the Bing AI chatbot on Windows claim to have seen a pop-up on the taskbar of Windows 10 or 11 offering them to try the Bing AI in Chrome. Users can also access Bing.com from their preferred browser and click the “Chat” icon to try out the feature. However, in our experiments, Chrome worked better than Safari to access Bing Chat at the moment. We might not be one of the “select users” who gained access during the tests, for this reason.
The GPT-4 model from OpenAI powers the ChatGPT-like experience in Bing Chat, but some users claim that trying the AI chatbot in other browsers has more restrictions than with the original version. The blog WindowsLatest.com, which was the first to notice the expansion, noted out, for instance, that Bing Chat in Chrome only supports five messages per chat, instead of the 30 available in Microsoft Edge. The site said it was limiting the character count to 2,000 instead of the 3,000 supported by Edge.
When we asked for more information, Microsoft declined to confirm these specifics or share any further information about differences between the various Bing Chat versions. The company also declined to specify when it began expanding to other browsers, which platforms were supported, or if users from global markets would be included in the tests. That will be something we learn in the coming days.
Bing Chat appears to be testing a native dark theme in addition to introducing compatibility for Chrome and Safari, however, this feature is not yet widely available.
After launching earlier this year, Bing Chat has gradually made its way into other Microsoft products. The new Bing was integrated with Skype and became available in a matter of weeks on the Edge browser for iOS, Android, and the PC as well as the Bing mobile app. Microsoft announced last month that Bing Chat would also reach the enterprise with a version of Bing Chat that contained governance and data privacy safeguards geared towards businesses. Along with such declaration, Microsoft also announced the rollout of Visual Search, which enables the chatbot to respond to questions about uploaded images.
