Microsoft Bing AI chat headed to third-party browsers on desktops, mobile devices

The Microsoft Bing AI chat is slated to arrive on third-party browsers on desktops, as well as mobile devices. The American technology company has some good news for those who have been waiting to try out Bing Chat with bated breath, but do not use the Edge browser.

To recap, the company recently confirmed that its widely popular AI chatbot has started rolling out to non-Microsoft browsers including Google Chrome and the Apple Safari browser. Now, Microsoft has announced that Bing AI is headed to third-party mobile browsers.

The folks at XDA Developers believe this could potentially be a game-changer for Bing. Notably, more people will be able to experience Microsoft's newfangled search engine. Likewise, Microsoft pointed out in a blog post that the availability of Bing Chat in third-party browsers on desktops and mobile will bring "the great benefits of Bing" to more people.

Microsoft Bing AI chat celebrates six months with a big announcement

In the meantime, the company says it will spare no effort to optimise the chatbot to ensure it meets the needs of users across different browsers. In line with this, the Microsoft Edge browser will soon let users rewrite text using Bing AI.

According to the tech behemoth, the expansion to non-Microsoft browsers will give Bing a platform to show off the "incredible value of summarised answers, image creation and more, to a broader array of people." It is worth mentioning here that Bing was already available on the Edge browser's mobile version.

So, the company's latest announcement is only linked to third-party mobile browsers such as Safari and Chrome. Also, it is worth noting that Microsoft is celebrating six months of the generative AI tool's availability. Earlier this year, the tech firm brought the Bing Chat mobile app to Android and iOS in a bid to ensure the AI-backed bot is available to more people across different platforms.

Aside from this, the company integrated Bing AI into Skype and added voice access. As a result, users can now speak directly to Bing or add it to a Skype conversation. While Bing Chat is set to arrive on third-party web browsers, Microsoft is reportedly reserving the best chatbot experience for Edge users.

In other words, the chatbot will boast a myriad of Edge-exclusive features. For instance, Edge users will get longer conversations and chat history. This speculation aligns with past leaks that indicated Bing Chat in Chrome will have several limitations.

Furthermore, Chrome will support just five messages per conversation, while Microsoft Edge supports 30 messages per conversation. Likewise, the Bing AI chatbot accepts 3,000 input characters n Edge and only 2,000 on Chrome.

Microsoft is testing plugins for Bing Chat in Edge

Microsoft confirmed the arrival of plugins for Bing Chat in Microsoft Edge during its annual developer conference earlier this year. Now, the company has reportedly started testing a wide range of plugins for Bing Chat in the sidebar of Microsoft Edge Canary.

However, the plugin support for Bing Chat is currently available only to select users. X (F.K.A. Twitter) user @Leopeva64 spotted the feature first and shared a GIF that gives us a glimpse into a section for Bing Chat plug-ins.

Although they can't be downloaded yet, this is a major sign that Microsoft could be in the final stages of development and this feature should be available soon. The GIF image shows a myriad of important plugins such as Instacart, Wolfram, OpenTable, and more.

Notably, plugin support in Bing Chat will be a significant addition, as was the case with ChatGPT. Also, the plugins that work on OpenAI's AI bot should work on Microsoft's chatbot since both ChatGPT and Bing Chat draw their power from GPT-4 LLM (large language model).

However, it is unclear whether Microsoft is planning to provide plugin access through the Edge sidebar before they are available on the Bing Chat web page. There's a dearth of evidence that suggest plugins will soon be available on the Bing Chat web page.