Microsoft Introduces AI-Powered Voice Chat Feature on Bing for Desktop
Microsoft has introduced voice support for Bing’s chatbot on Edge for PCs, which is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology. The feature was initially available on Bing’s AI chatbot for mobile apps and has now been extended to desktop. Users can simply tap on the mic icon in the Bing Chat box to communicate with the AI-powered bot, and it can even read its responses aloud. Microsoft acknowledged that many users prefer voice input for chat on mobile and has now made it available on desktop as well.
The feature currently supports English, Japanese, French, German, and Mandarin, but Microsoft says support for more languages is coming. In addition to being able to ask Bing questions simply by speaking, the chatbot now supports text-to-speech responses and can answer your questions with its own voice. “Using voice input, ask Bing Chat, ‘What’s the hardest language translator you know?’,” Microsoft suggested. And yes, it can answer.
As The Verge points out, Microsoft has introduced voice support for Bing Chat on the desktop shortly after announcing that it will kill the standalone Cortana app for Windows, which acts as a voice assistant, later this year. In its announcement at the time, Microsoft noted that users will still have access to “the powerful productivity features of Windows and Edge, enhanced with artificial intelligence capabilities.” In particular, it mentioned Bing Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot, which uses artificial intelligence to create content in enterprise applications.
