• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, July 10, 2023

Bing Chat will add a feature telling its technology not to search the web for an answer.

The "nosearch" feature is intended to prevent Bing Search from looking for answers on the internet, which is expected to quicken the time required to reply to a query made to the AI chatbot.

Asked on Twitter if Bing Chat can exclude web search results from its answers, Mikhail Parakhin, CEO of Bing Search at Microsoft, wrote, "#nosearch is coming" when asked if Bing Chat can exclude web search results from the answers.

Nosearch doesn’t require Bing to search the web for answers to question. Glenn Gabe, SEO consultant at G-Squared Interactive, explained that sometimes users just want to chat and receive answers from Bing Chat, information it already knows.

It’s not necessary for Bing Chat to search the internet for coding, math or other similar questions it can determine on its own.

The #nosearch feature likely will not solve the problem of copyright infringement that worries many publishers.

One Twitter user also brought up that while Bing’s response time has improved, the quality of the answers has declined. “It doesn't even properly use latex formatting like it used to,” he tweeted, calling it an issue only on the new prompt of Bing. The old Bing felt slow, but smart.

He also pointed out the loss of quirkiness and humor.

“Tldr creative seems to be more neutral now and more repetitive,” he wrote. “Also seems to be refusing to take different emotional states or personality which is sad.

Defending Microsoft’s position, Parakhin wrote, “We did make it much faster this week, but it is exactly the same in quality -- didn't change that.”