Bing Introduces AI-Powered Overviews; Microsoft to Pay Publishers for Content used by Copilot Daily; Oasis Ditch Dynamic Pricing

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 2nd Oct 2024 in News

Today’s news: Bing Introduces AI-Powered Overviews; Microsoft to Pay Publishers for Content used by Copilot Daily; Oasis Ditch Dynamic Pricing

Following in the footsteps of Google, Microsoft Bing has launched Bing Generative Search, its equivalent of Google’s AI Overviews. Following a pilot of the programme in July, the feature started rolling out to all US users on Tuesday. Like Google’s version, Bing Generative Search uses AI to aggregate information from the web and generate helpful responses to searches, including links to sources. Currently, the easiest way to bring up the feature is by searching “Bing Generative Search” on the search engine, although Microsoft will be introducing a way to trigger it more easily.

Next, more news from Microsoft: it has announced it will start paying publishers for content that appears in Copilot Daily, a new feature of its AI assistant, Copilot. The new feature, also announced on Tuesday, pulls insights from “authorised” content sources to provide users with a spoken summary of current events, including the weather. Publishers signed up to Copilot Daily include The Financial Times, Reuters and Alex Springer. It’s yet to be revealed how much publishers are being paid. Currently, the Copilot Daily feature is only available in the UK and US but Microsoft expects to introduce it in more countries soon. Copilot has also undergone a transformation, with new voice and vision capabilities added to increase personalisation for users.

Lastly, following the commotion caused by Ticketmaster’s ticket pricing for Oasis’ UK and Ireland tour leg, the duo have decided to ditch dynamic pricing for the rest of their tour. As a result of the dynamic pricing system – which raises ticket prices in line with demand – fans had been charged over double the initial face price of tickets. Following the outcry, an investigation into the matter was launched by the UK competition regulator.