After weeks of testing, Bing Chat is coming soon to Chrome and Safari browsers – leaving behind the requirement to install Edge, Microsoft’s browser, to use Bing Chat.
What we know. In the coming days, we expect Bing Chat to soon work on Chrome, Safari and other non-Edge browsers.
Right now, most people who go to Bing and click on Chat will see a message that says you need to download Edge to use the new Bing.
Testing Bing Chat on other browsers. Bing has been testing Bing Chat on Chrome, Safari and other browsers since earlier this month.
- Bing escalated its tests to a larger percentage of users late last week.
Misinformation. Some news organizations incorrectly reported that this is now live for all Chrome and Safari users. It is not. Some of these publishers have since updated their stories, but by that point, thousands of people had already read the incorrect information.
Testing is common. Search engines often test new features and changes to a subset of users. Like Google, Bing does this all the time. Some features roll out live to all users while others never do and quietly disappear.
What Microsoft said. Here are tweets from Mikhail Parakhin, the CEO of Bing, on this topic, where you can see Bing has been testing this for a while but it should be coming to more browsers soon.
First, here he just said yesterday that Bing is still testing Bing Chat on other browsers, but it should roll out soon to all users:
Last week, he said this feature should be live “in a week or two,” (which means it should be live soon for everyone):
Parakhin confirmed Bing was first testing “bringing [Bing Chat] to all the browsers soon” in May:
Other tests. Bing Chat:
- Is also testing dark mode.
- May eventually get an “expert mode” interface to search Bing Chat.
- Is coming up with a nosearch prompt.
- Would love to be on Apple CarPlay, but it seems Apple is preventing that right now.
Why we care. Bing Chat and these AI search solutions are rapidly changing. Both companies are frequently testing new features and expanding access to those features. What goes live and what remains a test is a waiting game.
