Last month Microsoft search platform Bing introduced the new AI-powered Bing and Microsoft Edge, a copilot for the web – delivering ‘better search, complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to create content.’
Now they have launched Bing Image Creator, new AI-powered visual Stories and updated Knowledge Cards to the new Bing and Edge preview. ‘Powered by an advanced version of the DALL∙E model from our partners at OpenAI, Bing Image Creator allows you to create an image simply by using your own words to describe the picture you want to see. Now you can generate both written and visual content in one place, from within chat.’
AI responsibilities at Microsoft – ‘our teams are guided by our Responsible AI principles and the Responsible AI Standard to help them develop and deploy AI systems responsibly. To curb the potential misuse of Image creator, we are working together with our partner OpenAI, who developed DALL∙E, to deliver an experience that encourages responsible use of Image Creator. We have ensured OpenAI’s safeguards, plus additional protections, have been incorporated into Image Creator. For example, we have put controls in place that aim to limit the generation of harmful or unsafe images. When our system detects that a potentially harmful image could be generated by a prompt, it blocks the prompt and warns the user. We also make it clear that Image Creator’s images are generated by AI, and we include a modified Bing icon in the bottom left corner of each image to help indicate that the image was created using Image Creator. We continue to work closely with OpenAI to build, test and review mitigations for our integrations.’
Since making the new Bing available in preview, we have been testing it with people to get real-world feedback to learn and improve the experience. People used it in some ways we expected and others we didn’t. In this spirit of learning and continuing to build new capabilities responsibly, we’re rolling out Bing Image Creator in a phased approach by flighting with a set of preview users before expanding more broadly. We will initially only include Image Creator in the Creative mode of Bing chat and our intention is to make it available in Balanced and Precise mode over time. We are also working on some ongoing optimizations for how Image Creator works in multi-turn chats. We continue to believe the best way to bring these technologies to market is to test them carefully, in the open, where everyone can provide feedback.
New AI-Powered Visual Stories and Knowledge Cards
To support the growing demand for more visual search experiences, we are also making Stories and Knowledge Cards 2.0 available to all Bing users. Stories provide a more engaging way to search and interact with content, offering images and short videos. Also new to Bing users today, Knowledge Cards 2.0 is an AI-powered infographic-inspired experience that provides fun facts and key information at a glance. It’s been updated to include interactive, dynamic content like charts, graphs, timelines, visual stories and more. With these updates and more coming, our goal is to deliver more immersive experiences in Bing and Edge that make finding answers and exploring the web more interesting, useful and fun.