A few weeks after the release of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence–powered Bing Talk, the company’s Bing search engine reached 100 million DAUs. Microsoft’s Bing has been expanding slowly over the last several years, but the new Bing Talk function attracts users who have never used Bing before.
But compared to Google’s more than 1 billion DAUs, Microsoft’s 100 million milestones for monthly active users are rather small.
Microsoft’s head of consumer advertising, Yusuf Mehdi, announced the milestone in a blog post. After “many decades of continuous progress,” as Mehdi put it, “with a touch of a boost from the million-plus some new Bing preview clients,” Bing now has more than 100 million users daily.
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AI Gives Bing A New Life
Microsoft has not disclosed the number of Bing’s daily active users before the introduction of Bing Chat; however, the preview has brought renewed attention to the company’s web search engine. Microsoft has found that around one-third of Bing Chat testers are first-time users of Bing. Mehdi estimates that around a third of regular preview viewers are also regular Chat viewers. Thus far, there have been over 45 million talks throughout the trial period, with an average of around three chats each session.
The rise in popularity of Microsoft’s search engine is not attributable only to Bing Talk. Microsoft’s active promotion of its search engine settings with Edge upgrades, Windows updates, or even alerts to stop consumers from installing Google Chrome has also contributed to Bing’s popularity. Mehdi predicts adding features like Bing search or create in the Edge sidebar will contribute to the browser’s continued success.
The Performance of Bing Chat
A month has passed since the introduction of the Bing chatbot. In response to the erratic behaviour many users experienced with the Bing AI chatbot, Microsoft has included a new option for adjusting the bot’s personality tone. Microsoft also implemented certain limits after seeing nasty replies, and over the last week, the software giant has begun throttling down on those limits.
Microsoft has released new statistics on Bing Chat use only weeks after outlining aims to increase profits in the $500 billion digital advertising sector. The CFO of Microsoft, Philippe Ockenden, told investors on a teleconference last month that the company stands to collect $2 billion in revenue from its advertising division for every point it gains in the search advertising market.
Throughout the last year, Microsoft’s advertising division has increased from $10 billion to $18 billion in income. Bing is largely responsible for this growth, but Microsoft continues to have ways to go before its advertising revenue matched Google’s projected $201 billion in 2022.
Microsoft’s Battle With Google
To Microsoft, though, this is a chance to increase its user base and gain ground on Google in the market. While they’ve grown in recent years, “we are completely conscious that we are a little, low, single-digit market player,” adds Mehdi. Then, “It’s nice to be here at the dance!” The Microsoft Chief undoubtedly meant the same dance when he mentioned it to The Verge in an interview last month. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella once described Google as an “800-pound gorilla” in the search industry. “Let it be known that we forced them to dance, I say,” he concluded.
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Feature Image Source: Bing
