Experimenting with Bing’s AI
I’ve been playing with Microsoft’s Bing AI tools and I have a few thoughts…
SEO rules. I asked for information on a couple of industries and what came back was what I’d already found on Page 1 of Google. Deeper diving locked me into a loop of the same information being resurfaced over again, albeit presented in mildly different ways.
Check the references it gives. A couple of times it pointed me to press release databases, and I took the extra step of finding out who said what. It also decided some information that was years out of date was current, probably as a consequence of SEO shenanigans.
The conversational style was interesting, but inefficient. Given the need to check the references coming back (which I’d do anyway) I question whether there is any time saving compared to efficient and iterative Googling.
The SEO dominance is a concern. I’ve not figured out how to push it to dive deeper into a metaphorical “Page 121”.
Check the images Bing creates *very* carefully. I found a few quirky ones in the images I asked for. That said, it’s fun to create them. I shall probably work out how to “finish them off” before using any in earnest.
Bing image creator doesn’t appear comfortable with people and things together. Take a look at the bicycle in the image. Aside from not being the tricycle I asked for, it seems to have melded into the girl like a T-1000.
Overall, I think it’s OK. I’d put it at the start of the journey rather than particularly far along. I’ll continue to use it alongside my Google-fu, and I won’t be changing my approach to fact checking. Edge is now installed on my Mac as a secondary browser purely for “AI-ing” things.
My name is Ross Hori
I'm a freelance writer, designer and photographer. By day I create articles, features and reports. At night I take photos and write fiction. Find out more.
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