Microsoft’s Bing Chat sidebar in Edge is powered by ChatGPT which may seem like a simple clone of ChatGPT.
But there’s more to it. While it is sure that the core technology behind Bing Chat is indeed ChatGPT,
Microsoft has enhanced this technology by adding several unique features and integrating it directly into
the web browsing experience, making it essentially an instant co-pilot for your web activities. Let’s deep
dive and explore all the unique and dynamic features of Bing Chat in the Microsoft Edge.
Using Microsoft’s Bing Chat: The Core Features
- Generating text using ChatGPT 4
- Summarizing and interacting with web pages or documents
- Creating images without the need for DALL-E
- Setting the tone for chat responses
- Exporting answers or text into Word, PDF, or text file
- Uploading and chatting about images
- Performing web actions from the Edge sidebar
- Integration of ChatGPT’s plugins
1. Generating Text in Bing Chat using ChatGPT 4
Bing Chat has evolved from a simple chat interface to a more sophisticated one with its new Compose tab.
This feature allows you to generate text based on a prompt. The interface is user-friendly and gives you
options to choose the tone and the length of the text as well as the format (whether it is a blog post or an
email). Once you click the “Generate draft” button, the generated text will appear below. You can either
copy the output as it is or further fine-tune it using Bing’s suggestions.
2. Summarize and Chat with Web Pages or Documents
With Bing Chat, you can ask the AI bot to summarise articles, documents, and other forms of text.
However, its functionality is not limited to that. You can also have a discussion about the summarised text
with Bing Chat. The AI bot can answer specific questions about the topics covered in the document. If the
bot’s answer does not satisfy you, Bing provides two or three follow-up suggestions, or you can ask a
different question.
3. Generate Images without Going to DALL-E
Another great feature of Bing Chat is its integration with another popular AI product from OpenAI, DALL-E. With
this integration, you can generate images just by typing “Generate an image of…” followed by your query in
Bing Chat. Four images will be generated for you, and clicking on an image will open it in a new tab. You can
view the image in full screen, download it, or save it to a collection.
4. Set the Tone for Responses
Bing Chat provides three different response styles. By default, you’ll receive ‘Balanced’ responses.
However, according to what you prefer, you can change it to ‘More Creative’ or ‘More Precise’ at any
time.
5. Export Any Answer in Word, PDF, or Text File
One of the features that make Bing Chat a useful tool for work is its ability to convert any answer or text
generated by Bing into a Word document, PDF, or a simple text file. You can simply hover over a Bing answer,
click the Export button, choose your format, and you’re good to go.
6. Chat in Images
In addition to text-based chatting, Bing Chat supports image uploads. It works both in the mobile app and the
sidebar. You can upload any image and ask Bing questions about it. This feature can be useful for identifying
unknown objects or solving visual issues. Rest assured, Microsoft promises to blur faces from images and not
use that data in its analysis.
7. Perform Web Actions from the Edge Sidebar
Bing Chat aims to provide a seamless web browsing experience, and to do so, it is integrated directly into the
web actions. This means that Bing Chat can help you find what you’re looking for and directly take you to the
webpage where the content is hosted, thus saving you time and energy.
8. ChatGPT’s Plugins are Coming to Bing
Microsoft has announced that Bing Chat will be using the same open plugin standard used by OpenAI. This means
developers can create plugins for any service that supports this standard, and this includes not only Bing and
ChatGPT but also Dynamics 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot. You’ll soon be able to integrate apps like
Zapier, Kayak, Zillow, and more, directly into Bing Chat. Furthermore, this feature will be available for
free, unlike OpenAI, which charges $20/month. You’ll be able to manage these plugins from the settings menu in
the sidebar. Once enabled, you can operate a plugin using a text prompt just like ChatGPT.