What you need to know
- Microsoft’s Mikhail Parakhin has teased a couple of exciting new features for Bing Chat in Twitter conversations with the community.
- One upcoming feature seems to concern adding longer-term memory to the chatbot.
- There also appears to be a plan to introduce ChatGPT-style plugins.
Everyone using Bing Chat has their own wish list of features they’d like to see but it looks like a couple are already in the works. One of these being teased has recently been announced for ChatGPT, so naturally, it’s pricking up our ears.
It all comes from Microsoft’s Mikhail Parakhin, the guru for all things Bing Chat (among other things), responding to questions from the community on social media. It all started in response to another interesting sounding ChatGPT-based app that is being built to have long-term memory.
It looks like something similar is already planned for Bing Chat.
Coming soon! In a fairly restricted form initially.April 9, 2023
What does this actually mean? Well, right now Bing Chat will remember the contents of a thread, but that’s about it. When you create a new chat, the contents of anything prior will be wiped. It appears that soon Bing Chat will be able to remember some things, though as indicated, it will be initially restricted.
Having a memory seems like a logical step forward, but it does need to be carefully implemented. And there will need to be an easy way to remove things from memory, too.
The other interesting news is that ChatGPT-style plugins are also very much on the roadmap for Bing Chat.
This one doesn’t get a “coming soon” but the response certainly indicates that Microsoft is exploring how to plug third party apps and services into Bing Chat. ChatGPT currently has the feature in limited preview and already we’ve seen the likes of Expedia, OpenTable, and Zapier build out plugins for OpenAI’s chatbot.
Bing Chat already has a leg up on ChatGPT with native search engine integration, but the ability to interface directly with a service like Expedia would make the overall experience much cleaner. Instead of being served a response with a web link to go out to Expedia to continue, a plugin would allow a more natural and informative response right within the chat window.
We’re expecting more new features to roll out to Bing Chat before April is done, but whether either of these will be part of that only time will tell. Of the two, memory is more likely, but exciting times lie ahead.
