Microsoft is overhauling its Bing search engine’s mobile experience with new features, better formatting, and integration with mobile apps for Skype and Edge.
The news came from Microsoft’s Global Head of Marketing, Divya Kumar, who showcased the new mobile experience and upcoming features in a blog post.
Previewed Features Are Arriving This Week
First, Kumar announced that several features previewed in May will be launched over the next week. These features include:
- Richer video experience on mobile and desktop
- Knowledge Cards
- Including graphs in search results
- Improved Formatting
- Better social sharing abilities
Along with these updates, Kumar says that chat history will be coming to desktop over the next week after already arriving on mobile. To access your chat history, hit the clock icon in the top right of an existing chat.
New Updates To Bing
The bulk of the announcement is dedicated to highlighting upcoming features for users on mobile devices.
For starters, Microsoft is premiering a Bing Chat widget that can be directly added to iOS or Android home screens – launching the new Bing Chat tools will always be possible with just a tap.
Additionally, Divya Kumar says that Bing is implementing the ability to continue a conversation across different platforms if you are signed in. For example, a user might start a conversation on desktop, but they will be able to pick up where they left off if they decide to move to a mobile device.
Microsoft is also working to improve language support for non-English users with better voice input.
Third-Party App Integration
Microsoft has integrated its AI tools into its mobile keyboard app, SwiftKey to make drafting new messages efficient and intuitive.
Additionally, the company is bringing Bing’s AI abilities to Skype by making the new Bing experience available from within any group chat. Just tag Bing in the chat to access the tools.
Why It Matters
Bing has been pushing to change its status as a search engine through its diverse AI tools and major updates to all of its services. According to the announcement, it seems to be working.
The company says it is seeing 8x the number of daily downloads since it launched the new AI-assisted Bing and they expect to see further growth as they develop these tools and products further.
