To mark its first birthday, Microsoft is announcing several new features and updated AI models for its Copilot.
The most significant change is the update of Copilot to the latest OpenAI model, GPT-4 Turbo. This model can take into account a much larger context of up to 128,000 tokens and provide more qualified answers — at least in theory.
However, initial benchmarks have shown that GPT-4 Turbo in some cases performs worse than the older GPT-4 in the preview version. However, it has the advantage of being faster and more cost-effective, which is very important for a service like Copilot.
Other updates include a newer DALL-E-3 model for the Bing Image Creator and the integration of the OpenAI Code Interpreter to generate working code with Copilot and perform data analysis, for example.
Copilot can be used via the browser at bing.com/new or, more recently, copilot.microsoft.com, while additional functions are available via a separate sidebar in Edge. Microsoft is also focusing heavily on integrating AI into its largest and most significant platform: Windows.
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As well as providing a different interface to the same OpenAI technologies available through ChatGPT, Microsoft is looking to tie them into its existing ecosystem in a meaningful way, similar to what Google is trying to do with Bard.
GPT-4V's image recognition will soon be linked to Bing's image search to provide source-based answers to uploaded images. Similar to Google's Search Generative Experience, Deep Search will be able to respond to queries with a summarized answer. This approach by search engine providers has led to complaints from publishers for some time, who fear a loss of clicks and therefore advertising revenue.
Video: Microsoft
Video: Microsoft
Microsoft is also planning to bring Deep Search to all Bing searches, regardless of browser, and is introducing new features for the Copilot sidebar in Edge. Among other things, the AI can be used to summarize entire websites or YouTube videos or to call up the text generator from almost any input field.
