Microsoft’s Bing AI Chatbot Has a Name, ‘Sydney,’ Existing Since 2021 Before ChatGPT Integration

Isaiah Richard, Tech Times 24 February 2023, 01:02 am

It was previously claimed that Microsoft Bing already featured artificial intelligence in its search engine, and while not a lot of people noticed it, the company even tested out a chatbot experience before.

According to reports, this AI chatbot previously had a name, and it was identifying itself as "Sydney," the humanoid system people talk to online.

Microsoft Bing's had an AI Chatbot and its Name was 'Sydney'

(Photo : Screenshot from: Bing)

Sources and people who encountered Bing before claimed that there was a previous chatbot already available within the search engine called "Sydney," before its recent integration. According to The Verge, from 2017 to 2021, Microsoft developed a single AI-powered bot to help Bing answer queries of users as an all-in-one system for all.

"Sydney" was something that previous users claimed to converse with and encountered before, but it was not as powerful as OpenAI's ChatGPT, and other GPT models.

Instead of employing individual bots, the company aimed to have one system to rule them all, with Sydney as its developer, from its Bing and Office assistants.

Before ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing had 'Sydney' Chatbot

Before ChatGPT, Microsoft had been working towards developing an AI chatbot which only gained its notable personality and personable features in 2021.

According to Jordi Ribas, Microsoft's head of search and AI, "Last Summer, OpenAI shared their next generation GPT model with us, and it was game-changing."

"Seeing this new model inspired us to explore how to integrate the GPT capabilities into the Bing search product, so that we could provide more accurate and complete search results for any query including long, complex, natural queries," claimed the executive.

Microsoft Bing's Development with ChatGPT

Back in early February, Microsoft and Google unveiled their versions of a search engine that features an AI system that would help refine results and improve the experience for the world. Google Bard was the first, but Microsoft soon followed with Bing, unveiling that it is using OpenAI's ChatGPT and everything it brings to the table.

The Microsoft search engine is now limited to people who joined the beta testing phase's waitlist to get the new version of Bing.

After the initial round of people under the waitlist have experienced its full power, Microsoft then decided to limit the answers of the chatbot to five responses per session.

There were not a lot of people using Bing in the past years, as Google took over the search engine market a long time, dominating the industry in the world. However, there seems to be a different setup now, especially as Microsoft Bing rose to fame with ChatGPT, but "Sydney" is a reminder that there was an AI before, already integrated into its platform.