• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 22, 2023

The power of AI-powered Bing chat is in voice search.

Microsoft on Wednesday brought the Bing search and chat experience to Skype and to mobile on iOS and Android, using the Bing mobile app and Edge mobile app browser. It will allow those in Bing Chat on mobile devices to use voice search.

Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft, provided an example in the post of a father and son who developed a video-game idea with the help of Bing chat.

“They started off by creating sci-fi stories using simple prompts in chat, eventually leading to the development of a video game idea where Bing not only helped create a plot, but also generated the code to input directly into Scratch – a visual programming tool,” he wrote. “In just a few queries, they captured the wonder and potential of the new Bing and Edge. We are hearing many similar stories on how the new Bing is helping people discover and create in ways previously not possible.”

The AI-powered Bing for Skype made its worldwide preview today, to better assist users when collaborating with friends and family.

More than 36 million people use Skype daily to connect through phone calls and chats across borders and around the world. The new Bing will enable a variety of helpful and entertaining new scenarios and capabilities.

Adding Bing to the group is similar to the way someone would add a Skype contact. It provides the ability for Bing to answer questions and provide information to the entire group.

For example, Mehdi wrote, if a family talking about the next family reunion, someone can ask Bing for suggestions on travel destinations, expected weather forecasts and events around the time of travel. Everyone in the chat group will get access the results simultaneously.

The availability of the Skype user interface will vary during the initial rollout.