It’s fair to say that AI has blown up. From the moment that the power of ChatGPT first reached the masses, you haven’t been able to go anywhere or read anything without AI being mentioned at some point.
Whether AI ends up destroying humanity or just making us its slave remains to be seen, but what’s certain is that the natural language processing tools that make use of AI technology are an enormous leap forward.
One of the easiest ways to take advantage of AI tech is through a chatbot such as Bing Chat. Until now, if you wanted to use Bing Chat in a browser, that browser needed to be Microsoft Edge. There is good news if you prefer Chrome or Safari, however: Bing Chat is being launched on those browsers too. If you’re a Mac user, here’s how to use Bing Chat on Safari.
What is Bing Chat?
Bing Chat is an AI chatbot created by Microsoft that is an additional feature of the Bing search engine. It allows you to ask questions and receive responses in natural language rather than typing your query into the search engine. It’s based on the popular ChatGPT tech (via OpenAI) but allows you to make use of the powerful text-generation AI system within the Bing search engine.
What can Bing Chat do?
Instead of typing a query into Bing’s search engine and then choosing from a list of search results, Bing Chat allows you to hold a conversation with the AI chatbot to access the information that you need. You’re not just limited to asking for information, however. You can ask Bing Chat to do pretty much anything, such as suggesting recipes, producing AI-generated images, summarising blog posts, or writing you a resignation letter. The only real limit is that you’re restricted to five replies on the same topic to avoid Bing Chat getting confused and wandering into questionable territory. You’re also limited to 50 questions in total per day.
Which browsers offer Bing Chat?
Initially, Bing Chat was only available in Microsoft’s Edge browser, apparently in an effort to get more people to use it. However, a report from Windows Latest first indicated that the chatbot was being introduced to Bing’s search engine on Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari. The feature is currently being rolled out, however, so won’t be available to every Chrome or Safari user. At the time of writing, we were able to use Bing Chat on Chrome but were not yet able to access it on Safari.
Is Bing Chat on Safari the same as on Edge?
Bing Chat on Chrome and Safari is almost exactly the same as on Edge, but there is one key difference. In Edge, your query can be up to 4,000 characters long. On Chrome and Safari, this is limited to 2,000 characters.
The other big difference is that if you’re already using Bing Chat on Edge, you won’t be hit with the requests to install Edge that pop up when you’re using Bing Chat on Chrome or Safari.
How to use Bing Chat on Safari
If you have access to Bing Chat on Safari, then accessing and using the chatbot is a piece of cake.
- Open Safari and navigate to Bing.com.
- At the top of the window, click Chat.
- Type your query into the dialogue box and press Enter to submit it. You’re limited to 2,000 characters.
- When you receive your response, you can reply to it again to clarify your query or gain further information.
- When you reach five responses on the same query, you’ll need to click the Broom icon to start a new topic.
ChatGPT is an incredibly powerful tool, but there are a few barriers to using it, such as needing to register an account and accept a list of disclaimers. Bing Chat gives you access to the power of ChatGPT in a much more user-friendly format. If you’re an Apple Mac user who uses Safari by default, being able to access Bing Chat directly from your browser is very welcome news.