Microsoft is rolling out anonymous Bing Chat access

Martin Brinkmann
May 17, 2023
Microsoft
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Microsoft is rolling out an update to its AI service Bing Chat that allows anyone to use the service. Right now, a Microsoft account is required to access Bing Chat and communicate with the technology.

The rollout changes this as unauthenticated users may then also interact with the AI. There is one caveat, however: chat turns are limited to 5 per session.

A chat turn is a back and forth between the user and Bing Chat. A limit of 5 means that the user may send 5 messages to Bing Chat and will receive 5 replies. These may be related and Bing Chat will pick up on things like context while in a session.

bing chat unauthenticated access

Anonymous Bing Chat users can't continue conversations after the limit has been reached. While that is also true for signed-in users, signed-in users have a chat turn limit of 20, which gives them more options to communicate with Bing Chat about a particular topic before having to start a new conversation.

Michael Schechter confirmed the rollout of anonymous Bing Chat access today on Twitter. Schechter is Vice President of Microsoft Bing. He said: "As some of you have noticed, we’ve started rolling out unauthenticated chat access on Bing. Seeing only 5 chat turns per session? Sign in to have longer conversations."

Microsoft dropped the Bing Chat waitlist earlier, Google has done the same with its Bard AI. Users who sign-in with a Microsoft account or create a new account may start communicating with Bing Chat immediately.

The launch of unauthorized access to Bing Chat marks the next chapter. It confirms that Microsoft is confident enough that its infrastructure is capable of handling the additional load that the unlocking will no doubt cause. It will also increase usage of Bing Chat further, especially by attracting users who did not want to use a Microsoft account to sign in or refused to use one.

Schechter did not offer information on the pace of the rollout.

Now You: have you tried Bing Chat? (Via Neowin)

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Microsoft is rolling out anonymous Bing Chat access
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Microsoft is rolling out anonymous Bing Chat access
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Microsoft is rolling out an update to its AI service Bing Chat that allows anyone to use the service.
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Comments

  1. Slingblade said on May 18, 2023 at 6:24 am
    Reply

    @Ty:

    > if you want to use bing anonamously ; tell edge to block for example:

    LOL! That’s a good one. anonymously? Please.

    Edge is black box proprietary software. And if you’re using Winblows you’re also stuck with more black box proprietary software. Anyone who thinks they can “lock down” or otherwise control M$ Winblows and/or M$ apps is out of their minds.

    1. basingstoke said on May 18, 2023 at 12:00 pm
      Reply

      Sure you can – you can use programs like TCPView from Sysinternals, or Nircmd has one as well – to find outgoing connections – and then take appropriate steps to prevent programs from doing things. Heck, you can probably use an external firewall as well.

      Sure you don’t get full control, that’s never been the case, but Windows dunks on Linux every day of the week.

      Calling it Winblows just makes you seem salty – if you’re a basic user Linux may be OK, but if you’re a power user that wants to get the most out of their system, prepare for steep learning curves and losing a bunch of time researching things. And if something goes wrong? Linux stuff isn’t the best for good, simple, documentation – and error messages: On windows you can look up error codes and usually you’ll find results.. on Linux that’s not always true.

      Like it or not there’s a reason more people use windows than linux!

  2. Naj4 said on May 18, 2023 at 3:10 am
    Reply

    All that fuss and money wasted to end-up with a mainstream companion app for karens that’ll point at your bar for the evening and suggest vacation destinations…

  3. Ty said on May 18, 2023 at 3:05 am
    Reply

    And don’t forget to hosts block the telemetry.

  4. Ty said on May 18, 2023 at 3:03 am
    Reply

    This is fantastic; Thank you microsoft. Compose appears to be unlimited; so you can do all you want there; edge and bing still drop cookie identifiers, if you want to use bing anonamously ; tell edge to block for example:

    [*.]msn.cn
    [*.]msn.com
    [*.]bing.com
    [*.]live.com
    [*.]microsoft.com

    still wise to go through every edge setting and group policy with a fine toothed comb, even the language section… don’t miss a spot.

  5. Anonymous said on May 17, 2023 at 11:08 pm
    Reply

    I can’t wait for the Bing Chat craze to die away. Hopefully it fails like Cortana.

  6. Tom Hawack said on May 17, 2023 at 7:24 pm
    Reply

    I haven’t tried Bing Chat (no Microsoft account) and I doubt I’ll try it should it be opened to unauthenticated users.
    I avoid, block access to Bing, Microsoft servers as a whole which means I’d have to either unblock required connections either access Bing Chat via a VPN. Frankly ; not excited.

    I had a look at ‘HuggingChat” [https://huggingface.co/chat/] and though it is likely far less advanced/sophisticated than ‘Bing Chat” the little I experienced didn’t thrill me enough to carry on regularly.

    Truth is, as much as I consider AI as the next step for science and technology, as much do I not perceive it as an interesting topic for myself. I am as well saturated with ‘AI for the masses” appearing everywhere, browser extensions, scripts as well, all bouncing on the AI trend … Now, talented users may certainly get or try to get the best of AI assistance but as far as I’m concerned I prefer the old method, search, differentiate, select, summarize, in the same way some authors prefer pen and paper to a typewriter or a typewriter to a digital device.

    1. John G. said on May 17, 2023 at 8:42 pm
      Reply

      I am also aware about the Bing AI, however we (my friends and me) have found recently the Bing Microsoft Rewards and it has been surprisingly good for us the option to donate to the Red Cross and Unicef! Now we spent a few time per day to win some points in order to donate them to these two aid organizations! Good job Microsoft! :]

      1. John G. said on May 17, 2023 at 9:01 pm
        Reply

        Also the points can be donated to one organization against the cancer disease! :]

  7. bingo said on May 17, 2023 at 6:58 pm
    Reply

    not available for firefox. vendor-lock?

  8. bingo said on May 17, 2023 at 6:55 pm
    Reply

    is not available to firefox. vendor-lock?

  9. Frankel said on May 17, 2023 at 6:46 pm
    Reply

    >Anonymous Bing Chat users can’t continue conversations after the limit has been reached.
    >

    Ah yes, getting people hooked on Bing first for “free”, then the account shackles come.

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