Microsoft to power Bing with AI as race with Google heats up

Microsoft is revamping its search products with more artificial intelligence, including the wildly popular ChatGPT, as tech companies race to take advantage of increasingly powerful AI tools.

The company detailed its plans at a special event on Tuesday, saying it would work with OpenAI, the startup behind the ChatGPT tool, to upgrade its Bing search engine and Edge web browser and enhance the information available.

The move is meant to rival Google and potentially claim vast returns from tools that speed up all manner of content creation, automating tasks if not jobs themselves. Shares of Microsoft rose 3.2% in afternoon US trading to $265.10 a share.

The power of so-called generative AI that can create virtually any text or image dawned on the public last year with the release of ChatGPT. Its human-like responses to any prompt have given people new ways to think about the possibilities of marketing, writing term papers or disseminating news, or even how to query information online.

Google has taken note. On Monday it unveiled Bard, and the company is planning to release AI for its search engine that can synthesize material when no simple answer exists online.