Microsoft has announced a major update to its Bing chatbot that adds image and video search capabilities, restaurant reservations, chat history, and better integration with the Microsoft Edge browser. The company made Bing available to all users with new features.

Perhaps the most important innovation was the “Actions” function. You can now use a chatbot to complete tasks without having to navigate from one site to another. If a restaurant is recommended in the search results, Bing finds a convenient time for the user and helps book a table in the chat interface. This functionality also works in the Edge browser. For example, while searching for a movie, you can ask the robot to play the movie, and the robot will automatically select the required service and open the site where this movie will be published. Microsoft did not announce the available services, but demonstrated the functionality of the function using the example of Apple TV.

Another much-needed feature popping up in Bing is chat history. It allows you to follow conversations with the chatbot on different devices and even use Bing as a research tool. Over time, Microsoft plans to add an export function, as well as the ability to share the content of the conversation on Twitter or export it to a Word document. The story can be easily moved to Microsoft Edge’s sidebar and the conversation can be continued with the bot. To do this, simply open the link to the chatbot’s reply. Microsoft is experimenting with personalizing these conversations by adding context to new ones from previous conversations.

Bing has been taught to find images/videos and display them directly in chat with updated formatting alongside charts, graphs and more meaningful answers. Microsoft is also expanding the Bing Image Creator tool and allowing users to create images using Bing.

Also, Microsoft is adding support for third-party modules to the chatbot. The company is working with OpenTable, Wolfram Alpha and OpenAI so far. More on that will be revealed at its Build conference later this month, when the software giant will detail how developers can expand the chatbot’s capabilities. Finally, Bing with AI is now available to all users. You don’t have to wait any longer to try it out – just sign in with your Microsoft account and access the open preview version of the GPT-4 based chatbot.