Microsoft has announced it has started testing its new Bing generative search experience — not to be confused with Google’s Search Generative Experience — in the latest round of the AI-powered race in search.
Bing generative search combines the power of LLMs and SLMs (large and small language models) with Bing’s search results to create an AI-generated search results page, giving a “bespoke and dynamic response” to a user query.
“It understands the search query, reviews millions of sources of information, dynamically matches content, and generates search results in a new AI-generated layout to fulfill the intent of the user’s query more effectively.”
A screenshot of what it looks like shows the following elements included:
- Documents index on the left
- Traditional search results on the right
- Answer summary
- Source citations for the answer summary
- Related sections for further information
Two major issues around AI-generated search concern inaccurate information being supplied by the AI, and the threat to traffic for websites from which the AI has aggregated the information for its answer.
Microsoft says they’ve refined methods to optimize accuracy in Bing, and are continuing to look closely at how generative search impacts traffic to publishers. It says early data shows clicks to websites maintained, but no stats are given to back this up.
“Early data indicates that this experience maintains the number of clicks to websites and supports a healthy web ecosystem. The generative search experience is designed with this in mind, including retaining traditional search results and increasing the number of clickable links, like the references in the results.”
The new experience will be rolled out slowly, with Microsoft taking time to test and learn from feedback before making it more widely available.
Publishers should keep an eye on clickthrough rates from Bing to see if there is any impact as the new experience continues to roll out over time.
