Microsoft made an initial investment of $1 Billion into OpenAI in 2019, and since then, their initial investment has been predicted to reach $10 billion.
At the time, OpenAI said in a post that the multibillion-dollar investment “will allow us to continue our independent research and develop AI that is increasingly safe, useful, and powerful.”
OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft is now being taken to new heights as the software and IT giant introduces Bing search into ChatGPT, allowing “Plus” ChatGPT subscribers to use the chatbot with internet access.
A Strengthening Partnership
By default, ChatGPT can’t access the internet. The chatbot was trained on data up until the year 2021 which is a limitation users have found frustrating.
That’s now all about to change.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has taken AI by the horns so far and now he’s moving faster than ever in the company’s partnership with ChatGPT creators, OpenAI.
The company announced at their annual Microsoft Build conference that with immediate effect, “Plus” ChatGPT subscribers would have access to their Bing search integration, providing ChatGPT with access to real-time data via Bing search.
A plugin for non-paying users of the chatbot will also soon be available, reports gizmodo.com, however, that’s still in beta and the company’s interoperability is currently only available to subscribers.
Microsoft said that the integration would allow ChatGPT answers to be “grounded by search and web data” and users will get up-to-date citations, much like Bing AI currently provides.
With the knowledge that Google is on a fast-paced track to creating its own internet-accessible AI, it’s no wonder Microsoft is moving so quickly. Competition is fierce and the industry is moving at a rapid pace. The company recently removed a barrier to their AI chat, Bing Chat, by allowing users of Bing Chat to access it without needing to be logged in.
It seems that Microsoft is moving faster and faster towards accessible AI and introducing it into their existing suite of products, too.
Microsoft’s Fast-Paced Plans In The AI Space
Although the fact remains that billions of people use Google Search compared to the millions that use Bing, it is clear that Microsoft isn’t slowing down its moves in the AI space.
In March, the company announced its AI assistant, Copilot, which will be integrated into every 365 product, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint & Outlook, it’ll even use data in your calendar to help you be more productive day-to-day.
You can use one short prompt in Word and Copilot will create an entire draft for you.
In their announcement post, Microsoft explained that Copilot will be integrated in two ways. It’ll integrate AI into all of the products mentioned above to help users be more productive and more creative, but their Business Chat feature is where things get interesting. They said:
“Business Chat works across the LLM, the Microsoft 365 apps, and your data—your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and contacts—to do things you’ve never been able to do before. You can give it natural language prompts like “tell my team how we updated the product strategy” and it will generate a status update based on the morning’s meetings, emails, and chat threads.”
This year, we’ll likely see developers releasing new plugins and integrations since they’re ramping things up with their own development platform.
The company said that it’s “adopting the same plugin standard employed by ChatGPT”, so we can expect more plugins and AI applications to be compatible with all Microsoft AI-enabled apps and products.
