Bing helps Microsoft make strides in AI effort
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, center, answers a question from the audience at the annual Microsoft shareholders meeting as Brad Smith, left, president and chief legal officer, and Amy Hood, chief financial officer, look on, in Bellevue, Wash., in 2016. As Microsoft begins to talk more about its ambitions in advancing the next stage of artificial intelligence, some see the company’s Bing search engine as the overlooked foundation to those efforts. Nadella describes Bing as a “great training ground for building the hyper-scale, cloud-first services” that have allowed the company to pivot to new technologies as its computer software business wanes.
Microsoft’s Bing search engine has long been a punch line in the tech industry, an also-ran that never came close to challenging Google’s dominant position.
But Microsoft could still have the last laugh, since its service has helped lay the groundwork for its burgeoning artificial intelligence effort. That AI effort could help keep Microsoft competitive as it builds out its post-PC future.
Bing probably never stood a chance at surpassing Google, but its 2nd-place spot is worth more than the advertising dollars it pulls in with every click. Billions of searches have provided Microsoft with a massive repository of everyday questions people are asking about their health, the weather, store hours or directions.
That data helps power AI systems, which look for patterns in text, images and speech.
