Microsoft recently announced a new AI-powered version of Bing search engine, but did not disclose which version of OpenAI’s GPT model it was using. However, OpenAI has now released GPT-4, an updated version of GPT-3.5, and it has been revealed that Bing was using it all along. According to Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s corporate VP and consumer chief marketing officer, they have customized GPT-4 for search, and if anyone has used the new Bing preview in the last five weeks, they have already experienced an early version of the powerful model.
When Microsoft launched the new Bing, there were plenty of rumors that it ran GPT-4 already, so this isn’t a huge surprise, but it is interesting to see that Microsoft was confident enough in the model to stake its reputation on it — and to pay the bills for this more complex model. Microsoft, it’s worth noting, is using a combination of GPT-4 and its own Prometheus model in order to provide more up to date information and put guardrails around OpenAI’s model. After a rougher start than the company probably anticipated (in part because the new Bing was prone to hallucinations), Microsoft quickly iterated on the new Bing in recent weeks and after placing a number of restrictions on it early on, the company is now loosening up again. Only yesterday, Microsoft extended the number of possible turns in a conversation to 15 and now allows users up to 150 chats per day. So if you want to give the new GPT-4 model a try, just head over to Bing (or get on the waitlist, if you haven’t done so yet).