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Microsoft brings its new AI-powered Bing to the Windows 11 taskbar
Microsoft is quickly bringing its AI-powered Bing everywhere.
www.theverge.com
Microsoft is releasing a big update to Windows 11 today that adds the company’s new AI-powered Bing search to the taskbar. The new Windows 11 update will offer quick access to the new Bing chat feature alongside a bunch of new features. Windows 11 is also getting improvements to widgets, a better touch mode, a screen recording feature, tabs inside Notepad, and more.
The new Bing integration is a surprise addition that Microsoft hasn’t been testing with its Windows Insiders. A new Bing icon will appear within the search box in the taskbar, with Microsoft highlighting the new chat answers experience in the search flyout. While chat answers won’t be available directly within the search flyout, Windows 11 users will be able to quickly start a Bing chat in Edge from here — providing they have access to the Bing preview.
The AI-powered Bing will appear in Windows search. Image: Microsoft
“We’re reimagining what I think of as an increasingly AI-powered Windows for the future,” says Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s head of consumer marketing, in an interview with The Verge. “This is a very important feature, today the search box is used by over half a billion people on a regular basis.”
More than a million people are now testing the new Bing preview in 169 countries, and Windows chief Panos Panay says in a blog post that “soon hundreds of millions of Windows 11 users can get access to this incredible new technology to search, chat, answer questions and generate content from right on their Windows taskbar.” That suggests that Microsoft is planning to greatly expand the new Bing preview.
The expansion of Bing chat to the Windows 11 taskbar comes just a week after Microsoft rolled out the same mode to Bing on mobile and in Skype conversations. Microsoft is also getting ready to demo its ChatGPT-like AI in Office apps soon.
This big new Windows 11 update isn’t just all about Bing, though. Microsoft is also opening up a preview of its Phone Link app for iOS, meaning iPhone users can link their devices to Windows. This will include access to send and receive messages (yes, even iMessage), calls, and notifications.
