Microsoft Bing's new Deep Search feature uses AI to 'disambiguate' complex search queries

Microsoft is introducing AI into most of its products and services, and its search engine, Bing, is one of the tools that benefits the most from this addition.

Today, the search giant takes things a step further still, with the introduction of a new AI-powered feature in Bing called, Deep Search. This addition aims to provide more relevant and comprehensive answers to complex search queries, boosting the existing web search rather than replacing it.

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Deep Search employs the power of GPT-4, a cutting-edge generative AI Large Language Model that can generate natural language text from any input. This allows Bing to understand the user's search intent more accurately.

As an example, Microsoft explains that if a user is researching loyalty programs in Japan, Deep Search can expand this query into a more detailed description, providing results that cover everything from the benefits and requirements of different loyalty card programs to a comparison of these with other payment methods.

One of the unique features of Deep Search is its ability to "disambiguate" ambiguous queries. If a query could have multiple interpretations, Deep Search uses GPT-4 to identify all of the possible intents and then provide a comprehensive description for each. Users can select the correct intent from a disambiguation pane, ensuring the search results align with their intent.

Microsoft says that Deep Search will delve much deeper into the web than typical searches, using a combination of querying techniques to find pages that align with the expanded query. This can lead to results that cover different aspects of the query, even if they don't explicitly include the original keywords.

After gathering a wide collection of web pages, Deep Search ranks them based on their relevance to the comprehensive description. It will consider factors such as topic match, level of detail, source credibility, freshness, and popularity.

Microsoft says that Deep Search can take up to thirty seconds to generate a result, which makes sense given the processing power needed to address more specific and more comprehensive answers.

Bing will continue to return regular search results as always, with Deep Search offered as an optional feature.

Currently, Deep Search is an experimental feature available to randomly selected small groups of Bing users worldwide as it undergoes testing and improvements.