Bing’s new experience with ChatGPT integration is significantly changing the way we search the web. The experience is known as “Bing Chat” and offers an experience that allows you to have a more natural conversation with the chatbot to get answers to long and complex questions.
This is very different from a traditional search engine because you don’t get a links page with possible answers to your query. Instead, the Bing Chat technology will answer the question directly using its knowledge and information from the web.
Although the chatbot available with Bing is intuitive and easy to use, you’ll need a basic understanding to use the new technology most effectively on Windows 11, 10, or other supported platforms.
This how-to guide will walk you through the steps to start chatting with the new Bing Chat AI in natural language.
How to get started with Bing Chat in Windows 11
To start using Bing Chat on desktop, follow these steps:
Step 1
Open Microsoft Edge and then go to bing.com/chat.
In the past, you could interact with the chatbot directly from the search results page from the right panel, but that has recently changed. Now you have to access the “Chat” page. The “Chat” option is always available on Bing.com or below the box in a search result. If you continue to scroll up with your mouse, the experience will automatically transition from the search results page to the chatbot.
Alternatively, Microsoft added some shortcuts in the search experience to open Bing Chat on the web from Windows 11.
Step 2
Choose your conversation style, including:
- Creative – gives Bing Chat AI more freedom for original responses.
- Balanced – allows the chatbot to generate more neutral responses without taking sides.
- Accurate – allows the chat experience to be more responsive.
The “Balanced” option usually gives you the best results.
Step 3
Click on the “Ask me anything” box and compose your question and press Get into.
In the box, you can ask anything using natural language. For example, you can ask questions like “I’m traveling to California in October. What are the places I need to visit?” or “Create a five-day itinerary to visit California in October.”
You can type up to 2,000 characters and depending on how you phrase the question, the chatbot will respond accordingly. It is interesting to note that asking the same or a similar question may result in a different answer with the same key facts, and may also trigger a different format for the presentation of the answer.
At any time, click the “Stop responding” button to cancel the query.
If you would like a larger box to ask questions, click on the Pin button in the lower right corner.
Stage 4
Bing Chat AI is context-aware, so you can ask follow-up questions without repeating certain keywords. For example, “Who was the main actor in the first Iron Man movie?” and the next question might be, “How old was he when he made that movie?”
step 5
In the Bing Chat response, you can hover over the content to reveal the source of the citations. In the footnote of the answer, you will find the name of the dating websites. You can also click the link to go to the website the chatbot used to compose the response, similar to a normal online search.
You will also notice a series of numbers in the lower right corner of the answer. They indicate the number of queries of a given session. Bing Chat AI is still in preview, which means there are some limitations. As of this writing, you can only do up to 15 queries per session and use up to 150 sessions per day.
step 6
If you are satisfied with the answer, please click the thumbs up (or thumbs down) in the upper right corner to help train the system. You will also find an option to share or copy the answer in the same menu.
Sometimes the chatbot will want you to continue interacting with the experience via predefined inline responses at the bottom of the response, but you can always ignore them.
step 7
Once you’re done with a theme, it’s a good idea to click the “New Theme” (broom) to the left to prevent the chatbot from getting confused by a new topic.
After completing the steps, you’ll understand how to use the new chatbot Microsoft uses in the new Bing experience.
Sign up for Bing Chat
If you don’t already have access to the new Bing preview, you’ll need to sign up and wait until you receive access to the chatbot.
To sign up for Bing Chat, follow these steps:
- Open the Bing Chat waitlist page with Microsoft Edge.
- Click on the “Join the waiting list” button.
- Sign in with your Microsoft account.
Once you complete the steps, you should quickly receive an email confirming access to the Bing chatbot.
Microsoft prioritizes access to users with Edge as the default browser on their devices, Bing as the default search engine, and the Bing mobile app installed on Android or iPhone. (opens in a new tab).
If you want to speed up the process of accessing the chatbot, you can always make Microsoft Edge your default browser in settings > Default browser and click on the “Make Default” on the “Microsoft Edge is your default browser” button.
If you also want Bing to be the default engine, open settings > Privacy, look for, and services > address bar and search and select “bing” for the “Search engine used in address bar” setting.
