Conversational search shortens the customer journey

The bulk of news Microsoft delivered Wednesday was around the new ways its existing products will incorporate generative AI. Chat will be more visually immersive, Microsoft’s browser Edge will incorporate chat to help users better understand web pages, and people can save and export their chat history, among other features.

The new features are intended to draw more users and will also help Microsoft gain more understanding from advertising. Microsoft has already gleaned that with the new Bing, people ask for more information when buying a product in a shorter time frame than traditional search, meaning the AI-powered tool may provide advertisers more information about people and convert them to buyers faster, Sainsbury-Carter said.

“That’s a super powerful outcome that we would expect to show great campaign improvement,” she said.

Levy said this finding is believable, cutting down on the choice paralysis that comes with traditional search by giving people fewer options in chat could help them make faster purchases. But for all the bells and whistles, Bing still needs to prove it has the results to capture ad dollars, Levy says.

“It’s making us think about Microsoft more than we did in the past,” he said, adding, “In these complicated economic times no one is going to commit budget if they don’t know what’s going to happen.”