Microsoft is moving ahead rapidly with allowing more people into the new Bing, and “lots (lots!)” of waitlist requests have been approved over the last few days, according to Bing VP for Growth Michael Schecter:
Lots (lots!) of new Bing waitlist approvals over the last few days, and our systems are holding up well. That means we keep pushing the "approve" button today.
— Michael Schechter (@mikeschechter) February 27, 2023
On Friday, Schecter reported a record for waitlist approvals, to be eclipsed on Saturday. Microsoft launched the OpenAI powered Bing “Copilot for the web” on February 7th, and has reported “multiple millions” of users have signed up to the waitlist.
While Bing Chat got off to a bit of a shaky start as journalists and researchers pushed the chatbot to the limit, Microsoft took steps to respond, first clamping down on a limit for chat interactions per session and chats per day (which now stand at 6 and 100, respectively), things seemed to have calmed down a bit, although users are still having fun with this new AI powered interactive search.
One user (via Tom Warren) took Bing along for a ride on his “time machine,” travelling to a White Star cruise on the Titanic, landing an Apollo command module on Earth, facing the Black Death in 1347, and resting after a hike at the site of the first atomic bomb test. Unlike earlier attempts to rattle the chatbot, college professor Ethan Mollick conducts a series of playful yet informative chats with Bing, which provides useful information and dare we say it, empathy towards Mollick’s predicaments.
If nothing else, Microsoft’s new AI infused Bing is providing lots of entertainment (Mollick’s tweets on his interactions have generated millions of views on Twitter). Are you on the waitlist for the new Bing? Have you recently been approved? Let us know in the comments below.