Microsoft has launched its latest AI-powered version of the search engine Bing which uses OpenAI’s tech to reply search queries with a comprehensive response from the chatbot, but on a limited scale only.

Bing’s official website announced the new update and also provided some pre-set questions and search requests that users could try out, in order to experience the chatbot.

A request for a menu to accommodate vegetarian guests, for example, had the chatbot suggest plant-based dishes for different courses along with links to their websites.

The Bing chatbot provides a menu for a dinner party-related query | Photo Credit: Bing “In the chat experience, you can also chat and ask follow-up questions such as, “can you explain that in simpler terms,” or, “give me more options” to get different and even more detailed answers in your search,” said Bing.

However, the chat mode to further interact with the chatbot is not yet public and interested users will have to join a waitlist to be approved.

Microsoft has stressed this graduated approach was for ethical reasons, and that the tool will be improved before it is publicly available.

“While Bing works to avoid sharing unexpected offensive content in search results and has taken steps to prevent its chat features from engaging on potentially harmful topics, you may still see unexpected results,” said the search engine’s website.

While Microsoft announced a multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, the maker of the chatbot ChatGPT, Google’s own conversational AI service, Bard, is being tested on a limited basis as well.