Bing said it is removing its waiting list for GPT-4 powered chat

Image Credit: Microsoft/OpenAI

Microsoft’s Bing is in the spotlight for the first time in a decade after unveiling a GPT-powered interface last month. But the tech giant has so far been cautious about how quickly it can make the new Bing offering — powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology — available to users. But Bing seems to be bringing those walls down.

Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, appears to have removed the waiting list from the new Bing, allowing anyone to get immediate access to the new experience. Windows Central, which was the first to spot this change, users don’t have to wait to try the new Bing. TechCrunch tested this with a few email IDs (both new and old) and got immediate access. However, not all the email IDs we tested were instantly accessible.

Image Credit: Screenshot courtesy of TechCrunch

Although the new Bing home page displays the usual “Join the Waitlist” button, you can log in and get instant access. The company didn’t say whether they were getting rid of the waiting list entirely, but Microsoft said in a statement that it was conducting various tests to absorb more users.

“During this preview period, we’re running various tests that may accelerate access to the new Bing for some users. We’re in preview and you can sign up on Bing.com,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.

Microsoft is hosting an event called “Reinventing Productivity with AI” on Thursday at 11 a.m. ET. While today’s agenda is limited to introducing AI-powered tools for Microsoft 356 (Office) and Dynamic 365 – the company’s sales competitor – it wouldn’t be surprising if there was also an announcement related to Bing.

The Seattle-based company is racing to integrate an AI-powered chatbot into many of its services. Last month, Microsoft introduced a GPT-4 running bot on Windows 11’s taskbar. Earlier this week, the standard version of the Edge browser got the Bing AI chatbot feature.

OpenAI’s technology has proven to be a success for Bing, which recently announced that it has reached 100 million daily active users. This is expected given the hype surrounding AI-powered chatbots and how it has attracted tens of thousands of users who want to give it a spin. After people “jailbroken” the chatbot and said problematic things, Microsoft started Tests various constraints on dialogs. Earlier this week it raised the limit to 15 turns per conversation and 150 messages per day.

The story has been updated with a statement from Microsoft.