• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 18, 2023

Microsoft began to allow users to experience Bing Chat without signing into an account. Earlier this week, Michael Schechter, vice president of growth and distribution at Microsoft, tweeted that Microsoft will roll out unauthenticated chat access on Bing. 

The caveat, non-authenticated user conversations are limited to five chat turns per session. The update follows a steady stream of people adopting the platform on the Bing search engine and the Edge browser.

Microsoft this week also shared data related to increases in engagement since launch. Bing now has more than 100 million active users, with roughly one-third of Bing chat users being new to Bing entirely.

About 500 million chats have been viewed. The new Bing has been introduced to the Windows taskbar, which reaches more than 500 million monthly.

Microsoft analyzed query paths. Time spent on average in second in search results pages have grown 66% in Bing chat, compared with the traditional Bing search engine, and three-times higher click-through rates (CTRs).

Search journeys are getting shorter, but the number of searches continues to increase. The average path length in days for queries related to travel declined by 6%, retail by 5%, and tech telco by 3%. The average number of searches for tech telco increased 12%, retail by 9%, and travel by 2%.

Searches overall increased by 15%, when comparing January to March.

Microsoft believes this could be an early indication of searches shifting to more natural and conversational queries.

More people are downloading the Bing mobile app. Daily installations have grown four-times since launch. Users are spending more time interacting with Bing chat on each search than on the traditional search engine results page. 

Microsoft also reported that the engagement rate with Edge continues to rise when people use the new chat features, with the browser taking market share for eight consecutive quarters.

Interestingly, Bing chat queries, on average, have grown to three-times the length of traditional search queries. Many of the queries are related to travel recommendations, creative outlets, and workout plans. The user prompts influence these types of queries.

 For example, travel searches with the term “create” rose 26%, suggesting an interest in trip plans. Searches with the words “cheapest,” “best,” or “top” have a increased.