Microsoft is making some changes to its artificial intelligence offerings.
The company on Wednesday rebranded its Bing Chat artificial intelligence tools as Copilot in an effort to make the latter more accessible and easier to use. Copilot will become available to everyone on December 1.
Microsoft said Copilot will also support OpenAI GPTs which will allow users to create a “tailored version” of the chatbot for specific tasks. In addition, Copilot will have plugin support that will allow it to work across OpenAI Chat GPT, Copilot – including Bing, Edge, Windows, and Microsoft 365 apps, according to the tech company. Eventually, developers will be able to publish their own plugins through the chatbot.
Over the last year, tech companies have been searching for ways to incorporate AI into their products and services after ChatGPT opened the public’s eyes to what a generative AI system could accomplish. The chatbot, developed by OpenAI, has garnered a tidal wave of attention and popularity since its launch almost a year ago.
Seeing the wave of enthusiasm, Microsoft invested in OpenAI to get access to its technology.
That excitement over AI, however, has also come with warnings about the potential dangers of the technology, particularly if deployed without safeguards.
Copilot uses commercial data protection which means prompts and responses aren’t saved, Microsoft has “no eyes-on access to it,” and conversations aren’t being used to train underlying models.
The rebrand doesn’t mean Bing is done for.
“Bing remains a prominent brand and technology powering many Copilot experiences while continuing to be a leader in the search industry,” Caitlin Roulston, Microsoft’s director of communication, told Cord Cutters News via email.