Microsoft Continues Bringing AI Tools to Microsoft 365

Artificial intelligence-powered Bing Chat is now rolling out to Microsoft 365 enterprise users in preview form, Microsoft said Tuesday. 

Microsoft is pushing privacy as a key selling point, saying AI-powered chat data is protected and won’t leak outside an organization. 

“Chat data is not saved, and Microsoft has no eyes-on access — which means no one can view your data,” Microsoft said in a blog post. “And your data is not used to train the models.”

The price is also a selling point. If you’re a Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium user, you’ll get Bing Chat Enterprise at no additional cost. In the future, it will be available as a stand-alone product for $5 per month. 

Not to be outdone by Google, Microsoft is rolling out multimodal capabilities, bringing Visual Search to Bring Chat. This means you can use images in Bing Chat to search for things.

With the launch of ChatGPT late last year, an AI chatbot that could answer almost any question with a unique response, there’s been a rush to use that tech across multiple applications. We’ve already seeing AI chatbots help people code, help with college applications and assist in dating apps. Heck, there’s even a ChatGPT-powered sex toy. But in business and enterprise applications, AI could become a powerful force. Already, Google is testing its Duet AI for Google Workspace, which brings the power of AI to Gmail and Docs to help people write.

The enterprise AI market is expected to reach $88 billion by 2030, according to Verified Market Research. Given the rapid growth, it’s not at all surprising that companies are being bullish in the space. 

Bing Chat Enterprise also isn’t Microsoft’s first flirtation with AI. The company was quick to up its investment in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, earlier this year and integrate its tech into Bing. Microsoft also brought its AI-powered Bing into Edge, calling it a copilot for the web. It introduced Microsoft 365 Copilot, meshing the same large language model tech from ChatGPT into Office applications. 

While it’s still in early access, Microsoft said that 365 Copilot will cost $30 per user per month for E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium Customers when it becomes broadly available.