Microsoft and the Bing team have unveiled a new AI-powered search experience that is more or less their version of the controversial Google AI overview.

A blog post highlighting the new tool explains how Bing's version is different, along with seemingly more leading information (h/t Digital Trends).

Bing's generative search is intended to create “tailored and dynamic responses. These include links to sources and further reading.

An example provided in the blog is the query “What is a spaghetti western?” The AI-generated result begins in a large, bold font: “A subgenre of film produced by an Italian film director.

Below this is the AI's summary, which highlights various topics and includes citations regarding the source of the information.

A source link is provided beside it, along with many summarized snippets of information. On the left side of the screen is an index of the various topics from the search. On the right side are more traditional search results and links.

Microsoft claims that “early data shows that the experience keeps clicks to the website and supports a healthy web ecosystem.”

The submission also states that Bing AI “understands search queries. This means that it is likely to generate search results even for conversational text or non-specific queries. This is something that most large-scale language models are already capable of doing, but is not unique to search engines.

The Bing team stated that the new search tool is being rolled out gradually. As such, it is not yet clear who will have access to it or when it will expand. They stated that they will “take our time, gather feedback, test, learn, and work to create a great experience before making it more widely available.”

Compared to Google's AI overview, it is not as minimal and uncluttered, but I think it looks and feels more informative, with more actual options and links to information than the simple paragraph summary and a few links that Google currently provides.

Between this and this week's SearchGPT announcement of OpenAI, Google is seeing some serious competition in the search space, especially with regard to AI integration.

Google's AI brief has already failed badly with a severely backward and rushed implementation.

Still, according to one study by HawkSEM, Google will have 1 billion daily active users in 2023, while Bing will lag far behind with 100 million.

If other companies can begin to chip away at Google with better search results, perhaps it will make the giant Google take notice and actually improve its own search engine, which according to Ed Zitron is not doing well.