Microsoft has announced a new search feature to Bing Search named Deep Search. Deep Search is an “enhancement” to Bing Search that provides “deeper and richer exploration of the web,” but it is slow. Also, Microsoft announced several improvements to Copilot, formerly known as Bing chat. This is all part of Microsoft’s one year celebration of its Bing Chat AI launches.
Deep Search uses Bing’s existing web and search index , plus its search ranking system but “enhances them with GPT-4,” the company said. With Deep Search, GPT-4 inputs the search query and then expands that query into a “more comprehensive description of what an ideal set of results should include,” they added.
Deep Search aims to bring “back relevant results that often don’t show up in typical search results.” It does this by using “querying techniques” to find pages that might match an “expanded query, rewriting the query on my behalf, and searching for those variations too,” they said.
Then when the query is expanded, Deep Search will compile a set of web pages to review, Bing will rank them according to how well they match the comprehensive description. “Deep Search uses a variety of signals to determine the relevance and quality of each result, considering factors like how well the topic matches, whether it’s at the appropriate level of detail, how credible and trustworthy the source is, how fresh and popular it is, and so on,” Microsoft wrote.
Deep Search was actually named Search Harder but it “didn’t test well,” according to Rangan Majumder from Microsoft. He said they used GPT-4 to suggest some other names instead of Search Harder. GPT-4 came up with “Deep Search,” he added. Essentially, “GPT-4 named this GPT-4,” Majumder wrote on X.
Here is that post:
Funny story: The internal name for Deep Search was “Search Harder” but it didn’t test well. We asked GPT-4 to suggest some better names and it came up with “Deep Search”! So yeah, GPT-4 named this GPT-4 powered feature.🤯 https://t.co/lgjcBDo8Kn
— Rangan Majumder (@RangThang) December 6, 2023
The example provided was for a query on [how do points systems work in Japan]. Deep Search would respond with:
Provide an explanation of how various loyalty card programs work in Japan, including the benefits, requirements, and limitations of each. Include examples of popular loyalty cards from different categories, such as convenience stores, supermarkets, and restaurants. Show a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of using loyalty cards versus other payment methods in Japan, including current rewards and benefits. Highlight the most popular services and participating merchants.
So it gives Bing Search more to work with by understand the query better.
Here is a GIF of it in action:
Another example is [how do points systems work in Japan] where Bing might break it out in a new “disambiguation pane” with Deep Search:
Deep Search can be slow, it can take up to thirty seconds to complete, Microsoft said. “Deep Search is not meant for every query or every user. It’s designed for those who have complex questions that require more than a simple answer. Bing will always return regular search results in less than a second and Deep Search is an optional feature,” they added.
Very slow:
Will be very slow, though – like “do research and ping me in 30 min” slow.
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
You also probably won’t see Deep Search, it is only available to a randomly selected small groups of users on Bing worldwide. But it should be available to all within “weeks.”
Available to a percentage of users, should be everywhere in weeks.
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
Via the VP of core search at Bing:
Deep Search in Microsoft Bing uses GPT-4 to understand and answer complex search queries. It goes deeper into the web to find more relevant and comprehensive results. It’s a game-changer for anyone who wants to explore the web in depth and AB testing now.https://t.co/E7IrhvlBTN
— Rangan Majumder (@RangThang) December 5, 2023
Here are some Deep Search screenshots from Microsoft’s CEO of Bing:
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
Microsoft also announced a set of features coming soon or already launched for Copilot; here is the brief list:
(1) GPT-4 Turbo is coming soon, we knew that. ” Soon, Copilot will be able to generate responses using OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4 Turbo, enabling you to tackle more complex and longer tasks such as writing code and more. This model is currently in testing with select users and will be widely integrated into Copilot in the coming weeks,” Microsoft wrote.
(2) Multi-Modal with Search Grounding: Microsoft said they are combining GPT-4 with vision with Bing image search and web search data to deliver better image understanding for your queries. This new capability will be available soon, they said.
With that they updated its Prometheus for multi-modal:
Another first: we are using the reverse Image Search to ground Image results for GPT4-V. Flighting already. pic.twitter.com/4cfcqO7ayz
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
(3) New DALL-E 3 Model: The DALLE-3 image creation is better, they generate higher quality and more accurate to the prompt with an updated DALL-E 3 model. This is live now.
We shipped a new version of DALL-E 3 – lucky internal number PR13. 100% in prod – please try, tell us what you think. pic.twitter.com/C6hL3Pj8OI
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
(4) Improvements to Code Interpreter:
I know, I’ve been promising Code Interpreter for a while. We are flighting the first version and the full version (with the file upload) is close now, too. pic.twitter.com/ZjDfiRie0g
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
(5) Improvements to Video understanding and Q&A using Copilot in Edge.
Adding ability for Edge Copilot to use information in videos – on a flight. pic.twitter.com/OdqlQQnle4
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
(6) Notebook feature:
One more thing: we are also starting to flight the Notebook interface. Keep changing the prompt on the left, get results on the right. Easier to copy and work on the prompt. It also remembers the previous version, so you can ask to change something. pic.twitter.com/WkfIE4bQmN
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
Mikhail Parakhin from Microsoft shared this chart of growth but as you see, no axis marks:
https://t.co/jstM2e6nLU
This has been quite a year. I thought I’ll share our Daily Active Users graph – thank you for using Bing Chat/Copilot! pic.twitter.com/So0bC35H5t
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
Agree, but don’t want to make lives of our friends in Mountain View easier 🙂
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) December 5, 2023
Forum discussion at X.
