Microsoft is trying to give Bing a boost with artificial intelligence and the use of chatbots. The company knows that to improve this, it needs to take this feature beyond the search engine itself, which despite the increase in users still lags behind the ubiquitous Google, so it decided Bring Bing Chatbot to SwiftKeyhis favorite keyboard app that is mostly active in development for Android.

Bing chatbot integration was introduced yesterday in the beta channel of SwiftKey for Android. At the feature level, it includes a chat mode that allows access to a chatbot, or a tone mode that transcribes any text on the keyboard. In case the user was using the Bing mobile app to access the chatbot, its integration into SwiftKey makes said app redundant, although one would have to be willing to use the virtual keyboard in general.

The Bing chatbot integration with SwitKey is currently exclusive to the Android build of the app. Pedram Rezaei, director of mobile technology and business at Microsoft, acknowledged that the feature is being rolled out slowly in the beta channel of the above version, but for now there is no news about its possible arrival on iOSas the build of this system has had a somewhat erratic trajectory recently, being discontinued and restored from Apple’s App Store.

Although the development of SwiftKey for iOS has less continuity than for Android, Rezaei noted that Microsoft ‘invests massively in keyboard’, so a possible acceleration of the development of a build aimed at Apple’s mobile operating system cannot be completely ruled out. On the other hand, this could be another step towards pushing an AI-powered version of Bing.

SwiftKey is not a development originally from Microsoft, but rather a third-party keyboard that was acquired by the Redmond giant in 2016. Under the umbrella of the Redmond-based corporation, SwiftKey has remained one of the leading and more popular third-party keyboards. Now artificial intelligence has become mainstream as a result, ChatGPT may have a great opportunity to expand and acquire users along with Bing.