Is ChatGPT breathing life into Microsoft Bing, or is it just a fad? New data might answer that question.
New data provided to TechRadar Pro by data intelligence platform SimilarWeb can shed some light on how Bing is doing in its bid to take Google’s search engine crown.
In case you somehow missed it, Microsoft recently announced a “multi-billion dollar investment” in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, its GPT-4 artificially intelligent (AI) language model wrapped in a chatbot. Soon after, Microsoft’s web browser search engine Bing began trailing a waiting list (opens in new tab) for “the new Bing”, promising integration with the technology.
Google, meanwhile, was left somewhat flailing in the wind to catch up with its own AI chatbot, Bard. Back in December 2022, Google entered “code red” over the rise of AI, but said that it likely wouldn’t implement AI into its search engine as it had a reputation to uphold.
Per the SimilarWeb data, in December 2022, pre-any major ChatGPT chatter, Bing (bing.com) managed around 843 million monthly page views, against Google’s (google.com) mammoth 74 billion.
But on February 7, 2023, the day of the OpenAI investment announcement, Bing received 30.3 million visits worldwide across desktop and mobile web. The following day, it saw just under 32 million visits.
From this slither of data alone, you may think that Microsoft’s investment is sparking new interest in Bing. After all, per SimilarWeb’s own report (opens in new tab), it represents a 15% boost over the average daily visit count for the previous six months.
But on closer inspection, it’s more accurate to say from the data available that Bing has been making meaningful long-term gains for a while.
