Microsoft today announced a range of new AI shopping tools for its new Bing search engine and Bing AI chatbot in the Edge sidebar. While many of the shopping features Microsoft has built into Edge over the years aren't exactly fan favorites, this new set of tools actually looks useful.
For example, when you use a query like "college supplies," Microsoft will now automatically generate a buying guide using Bing's GPT-powered artificial intelligence capabilities. It will automatically aggregate the products in each category it offers, list their specifications so that you can compare similar items and, of course, tell you where to buy them (when you buy, Microsoft charges an affiliate fee).
This means that Microsoft has an entire ecosystem of websites focused on generating such buying guides (if Microsoft does this in Bing, Google and others will certainly follow suit).
The new buying guide in Bing is now available in the United States, and the buying guide in Edge is available globally today.
Another new feature Microsoft is rolling out globally today is AI-generated review summaries. As the name suggests, this feature summarizes the online reviews of the product. To use this feature, simply ask Bing Chat in Edge to summarize what people are saying about a given product, and it will generate a quick overview for you.
Another new feature is Price Match, a tool that helps you request a price match from a retailer, even after the price drops. Microsoft said: "We have worked with top U.S. retailers to develop existing price matching policies and will add more over time. (Although it doesn't specify which retailers it is working with).