How Bing's AI Could Help Beat Google at the Search Game

Artificial intelligence (AI) is heating up the competition for search engines.

OpenAI recently announced that it would start using Microsoft Bing as the default search experience for ChatGPT. Experts say the move could bring Bing to the top of the search game. 

"Bing and Google often return different results due to differences in their algorithms," digital entrepreneur Dmytro Sokhach told Lifewire via email. "By using Bing, AI might access a somewhat different view of the web than it would get from Google alone, which can increase diversity in the information AI can learn and utilize."

The Bing Advantage

Subscribers to the ChatGPT Plus service can add Bing search by using a plugin, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's consumer marketing chief, said in the Bing blog post. ChatGPT's free service users will also soon be able to use Bing. 

"ChatGPT will now have a world-class search engine built-in to provide timelier and more up-to-date answers with access from the web," Mehdi wrote. "Now, ChatGPT answers can be grounded by search and web data and include citations so you can learn more—all directly from within chat."

The move to integrate Bing is part of a push by Microsoft and OpenAI to grow the AI plugin ecosystem. The companies claim better support for plugins means users will get more relevant recommendations based on conversations. 

Bing still lags behind Google in terms of the overall relevance of results but has a richer search result experience for many types of queries, William Underwood, the head of the AI company Optiversal said in an email. 

"They don't have as sophisticated of question-answering capabilities, so it remains to be seen how good the contextual cues from an integrated Bing search will be," he added. 

For users, Bing could offer better search results, Underwood said. 

"More and more of the search results page will be synthetic," he added. "Instead of old school 'meta descriptions' and HTML titles, we'll see synthetic summaries. Image results will also be better and, in many cases, synthetic as well. We'll also see more direct actions possible directly from the search page. Everything from making purchases to booking trips will be integrated into the AI search experience."

Compared to other AI search methods, Bing seamlessly integrates the up-to-date search feature with the ChatGPT-based conversation feature, Jed Macosko, a physics professor at Wake Forest University, said via email. 

"Sometimes when searching, a person needs an intelligent sounding board that knows the information, but this information doesn't have to be up-to-date," he added. "But other times, a person who is searching the internet needs something updated more recently than 'As of my last update in September 2021,' which is what ChatGPT will always tell you (and other AI search methods have their own cut-off dates)."

Google has suddenly been knocked off the search engine throne, Macosko noted. Bing used to be inferior to Google, so most users only considered using it if they had to. But now, Google continues to cater to websites selling things, while Bing is much better than it used to be, thanks to the input of ChatGPT's technology. 

"Bing does a nice job of combining two things: up-to-date info and a casual conversation. Google doesn't do this as well yet, but is starting to with Bard," he added. 

The Future of AI Search

For all its promise, the current generation of AI-powered search engines has significant drawbacks, including sometimes providing wrong information. But Justin Lane, the CEO of CulturePulse AI, said in an email that could soon change. 

Future versions of AI search engines will be "more truthful, making it more reliable," he said. Tech companies are "adding more structured knowledge networks into the AI so that it understands the relationships between different things."

Macosko also predicted that AI search would see rapid improvements. 

"Bard already is able to do much more than Google alone was able to do just a few months ago, and the addition of Open AI's ChatGPT technology into Bing has been a huge improvement for Bing," he added. "The future of search will definitely be more of a conversation than the old days of searching the internet."