Generative AI has become incredibly popular, and for Microsoft, it’s become the key to growing Bing. Now, the AI chatbot that makes the “new Bing” so attractive is coming to the SwiftKey keyboard for Android.
Available now in beta, SwiftKey now includes support for Bing’s ChatGPT AI, powered by GPT-4. The feature is “slowly rolling out” according to Microsoft’s Pedram Rezaei, though we were able to access it immediately when downloading the SwiftKey beta from the Play Store. This is only available on Android, though, with no word on when it might arrive on iOS (which removed, then brought back its app last year).
Accessing Bing AI in SwiftKey is handled with a “Bing” button that appears on the left side of the keyboard’s top row.
This takes two forms, starting with a new “Tone” option. With this, you can draft your message in SwiftKey and then have the AI rewrite that message in one of a few ways. Options include:
- Professional
- Casual
- Polite
- Social post
These tend to stick with the same basic message length, while the “social post” option will try to generate relevant hashtags.
Meanwhile, the typical generative AI that you probably know Bing and ChatGPT best for is a bit less “native.” On clicking the Bing button, there’s a “Chat” tab that pops up Bing over almost the entirely display. This is certainly quicker than opening up a full browser or the Bing app, but functionality is limited.
The only thing you can do with the responses from Bing is copying them to the clipboard with a “copy” button. It works well, but personally, I’m a little mixed on the actual utility of this – Bing’s responses tend to be a bit long-winded. There are surely some places this would be useful, though.
It’s not clear when these features will make their way to the stable release of SwiftKey for Android, but they do really show how much Microsoft is pushing AI, and it’s quite fun, really.
More on Bing:
- Bing’s AI Image Creator is faster with ‘boosts’ earned by committing to Microsoft’s ecosystem
- Report: Bing sees 15.8% boost in visits following GPT-4 push, as Google sees a slight decline
- Microsoft is bringing more ads to the new Bing