Microsoft is adding AI-powered summaries to Bing search results

The race to bring more AI features to search is escalating, with Microsoft moving forward with additional tools for Bing. Today, the company began previews for Bing generative search, where the top result for a user's query will be an original response compiled by AI.

The blog post about Bing generative search showed a few sample results. In addition to the overview statement, Microsoft will provide links to the main sources that the large-language models and small-language models used to create their answer. It will also have a section of related information. For instance, with the sample query "how long do elephants live," the main summary is followed by videos with information about factors that impact elephant longevity. After the generative results, the usual list of search hits will be displayed.

If you're curious and want to try out generative search right away, you may be out of luck. This isn't an opt-in choice yet for Bing users and it is only being applied to "a small percentage of user queries" at this stage. "We are slowly rolling this out and will take our time, garner feedback, test and learn, and work to create a great experience before making this more broadly available," Microsoft said.

Google rolled out a similar tool earlier this year called AI Overview in an effort to retain users who might go directly to an AI chatbot for answers to their questions. AI Overview had a rough, gluey pizza start, so it will be interesting to see how well Microsoft's counterpart performs in comparison. And while Microsoft did emphasize in the blog post that it developed generative search without the intent of ruining web publishers' business, it's worth repeating that this kind of AI tool is not a replacement for actual news.