Bing AI, which has aided customers with an extremely user-friendly interface for using an AI-supported search engine, rolled out a voice chat update for desktops in June 2023. Initially, the functionality was only available for handheld mobile devices; however, growing popularity made the firm extend the feature to desktops, making AI interactions simpler. The voice recognition capability makes Bing Chat more customer-centric and enhances user experience. The feature also supports multiple languages, including German, Mandarin, Japanese, and French, apart from English. More languages will be added to the feature progressively with enhanced usage and customer feedback. A simple click on the microphone button will now allow the user to merely speak a question to the chatbot, and the underlying LLM will produce a result for the user along with pulling up citations and sources from the web.
Features like this go a long way in enhancing the in-demand speech-to-text technology, which has been garnering considerable traction in AI-based transcription services. Firms like Otter.ai have already made inroads in the space by offering meeting transcription options, while Amazon has provided a similar service for physicians with its new tool called HealthScribe. Microsoft’s learnings from offering a voice AI chat input method can also help it enhance voice-based interactions with generative AI chatbots. Interestingly, Bing Chat’s voice feature can also interpret and produce coherent outputs for rather complex prompts that might otherwise result in deficiencies or malfunctions in the output.
Bing Chat’s Voice Feature: Why It Matters
Bing’s voice chat feature also allows the search engine to read responses aloud.
Exporting the voice command feature from mobile applications to the desktop version of the Bing Chat app makes way for a more conversational and hands-free experience. While prompting remains a key aspect of using generative AI today, future AI use cases will invariably need to be made simple, without the necessity of complex and engineered prompts. The arrival of a seamless voice chat feature within Bing indicates that AI is moving in a similar direction. Given that Bing AI was the first to offer a holistic AI-based search engine experience, it comes as no surprise that Microsoft is pioneering the push toward voice-controlled AI chatbots as well. Apart from voice commands directing the AI search engine, interestingly, Bing AI can also reply in its own voice by reading out responses and providing users with seamless information. Updates such as this make AI chatbots more accessible and enhance the prospects of better assistive technologies and AI tools to improve equitability in NLP models.
The arrival of Bing’s voice chat feature also comes at a time when Microsoft discontinued Cortana—the voice assistant on Windows. While it isn’t clear whether Microsoft used similar speech recognition modeling for Bing Chat, the timing of the update is still interesting and serves to provide a productivity boost for clients who are looking to use Microsoft’s chatbot more straightforwardly. Bing Chat still remains endowed with all of its former capabilities and functions on OpenAI’s GPT-4 flagship model, which continues to be among the top LLMs in the world. With more languages being added in the future, Microsoft can expect to attract more large-scale customers and clients intent on using the intuitive chatbot and search engine for more pointed needs.
Voice-Based Chatbots and AI Assistants
The new update adds considerable prospects to future LLM-based AI assistants.
While Microsoft has tried its hand at voice-based device assistants in the past, adding the feature to a search engine might be laying the framework for future on-device assistants endowed with better speech recognition capabilities. As competitor firms such as Google, Apple, and Samsung have their own flagship AI assistants, Microsoft has not had considerable success in the same niche. Moreover, the firm’s partnership with OpenAI is structured around keeping other major competitors in check, given that Google has been developing an advanced LLM titled “Gemini” in recent months. Apart from retaining its grip on the market, Microsoft might also want to capitalize on the early movers’ advantage, enhancing its chances of gaining an upper hand in what is clearly a competitive AI market dotted with numerous rivalries.
Invariably, the process of simplifying or automating the high-strung AI prompting process seems like a goal for most AI development companies, with experimental projects like AutoGPT gaining considerable traction. While adding voice features to AI might stoke fears surrounding surveillance and privacy, it still adds a fair degree of ease to the overall application experience by furthering engagement, which will subsequently convert to better metrics and profit. The groundwork for advanced and intelligent AI assistants is being laid by what is clearly a more literal take on conversational artificial intelligence. With the launch of this feature, open-source competitors and rivals might also want to enhance their offerings, improving the popularity and demand for voice AI chat features across the board.
The Outlook for Bing Chat
Bing AI has numerous improved features apart from the voice chat update.
Ever since the voice chat launch, Bing has been faster due to its extended memory. This has made way for longer and more detailed conversations. Users can also change the tone of Bing AI’s response, allowing a greater deal of customizability. Footnotes and enhanced human-like language features have also been added to the chatbot in an attempt to make the user experience more holistic. Given that Microsoft has combined its AI learnings from Bing Chat with Copilot—an all-new Windows assistant, users can now generate code and even images from the latter, making it a competitor to coding bots like Google Codey and image generation platforms like Midjourney. Apart from the extant voice feature, various enhancements to the interface of Bing AI have made it a potent competitor in a space dominated by ChatGPT and Google Bard.
FAQs
1. How does one use the Voice Chat feature on Bing AI?
Users must first click on the microphone icon followed by clicking “Allow” on the permissions popup to grant access to the web application.
2. Is voice chat available on the Bing AI desktop?
Yes, the voice chat feature has been launched for desktops following extensive user feedback requesting Microsoft to migrate the feature from mobile devices.
3. Is voice chat on Bing AI free?
Yes, the voice chat feature comes included within the overall Bing AI interface and continues to remain free for all users.