What you need to know
- Microsoft has announced new AI capabilities coming to Edge and Bing that are designed to enhance your shopping experience online.
- New features include the ability to use AI to generate tailored "buyers guides" for categories of products you're researching.
- There's also enhanced price matching and product review summaries coming to Bing and Edge.
Microsoft has unveiled yet more AI features coming soon to the Edge web browser and Bing online search engine. The company has been on an AI craze these last handful of months, starting with Bing Copilot, a new chat assistant powered by ChatGPT technology that can handle complex queries.
Today, the company is announcing new AI capabilities designed to enhance users' shopping experiences online, including the ability for Bing to automatically generate tailored buying guides for categories of products that you might be looking for. Using AI, Bing will be able to pull together a list of products and include a brief description of how good they are and pricing in a comparative grid.
Microsoft said the following in a blog post:
Our goal is to bring more joy to shopping – from the initial spark of inspiration to the exciting unboxing experience – by making the process easier and giving you confidence you’re getting the right item at the right price. ... Microsoft Edge has offered $3.7 billion in savings to shoppers worldwide in the last year thanks to built-in shopping features like Coupons, Cashback, Price History and Price Comparison. Plus, US shoppers can save an average of $400 per year with Microsoft Edge.
Bing will also be able to generate review summaries for products based on online reviews that Bing Copilot was able to find. You can access this via the Edge Sidebar, which will contextually look at the product webpage you're viewing and automatically pull in a summary for you.
Microsoft is also announcing an enhanced price-matching feature in Microsoft Edge. The browser has been alerting users of a better price elsewhere, but Microsoft says Edge will soon begin monitoring price changes even after you've purchased the item.
This will be handy if you're still in your return window, whether or not you can save even more money by requesting a partial refund for the price difference. Microsoft says these new AI features are rolling out now and should be available to try shortly.
In addition to the new AI features for shopping, Microsoft is also expected to begin previewing its new Windows AI Copilot this month, which will bring the power of Bing Copilot to the Windows 11 desktop.
