- By Vikas Yadav
- Fri, 07 Apr 2023 12:47 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
THE COLD war that ChatGPT initiated last year has pushed big tech companies to realign their priorities towards artificial intelligence. Microsoft is among the early adopters in this race. The tech giant has added another arsenal in the form of SwiftKey Beta with capabilities of AI-powered Bing.
For the unversed, SwiftKey is a popular keyboard on Android that directly competes with Google's Gboard. The Verge reported that the integration first appeared on Wednesday via a button to trigger Bing AI from a user's fingertips.
Pedram Rezaei, CTO of Microsoft, confirmed the information on Twitter. "Did we just add major AI functionality to @SwiftKey? Slowly rolling out. Get yourself onto the Beta channel to taste the future," the CTO tweeted. Further, he appreciated the idea of image creation that will help share the output in chats. It might be indicative of a future addition.
Did we just add major AI functionality to @SwiftKey? Slowly rolling out. Get yourself onto the Beta channel to taste the future.
— Pedram Rezaei (@pedram_re) April 6, 2023
The integration comes in the form of chat mode to talk with the bot. It will return a detailed response to queries thrown at it with citations. On top of this, Bing Chat integrated into it can do nearly similar stuff like writing articles, sorting restaurants, solving math problems etc., like the GPT-4 backed ChatGPT.
Plus, users can hover between different tones (ranging from Professional, Casual, Polite and Social post) depending on their preferences to optimise the output. To try out the new enhancements, a user can enrol in the beta program on Google Play Store.
Though the report has no confirmations of a possible debut on iOS, it might benefit in the future. We say this after an examination of the past record of AI spit and polish in Microsoft products. It seems the tech company is working on a strategy of 'no product left behind.'
About SwiftKey
The Windows maker acquired the keyboard app in 2016 after it rose to fame. It was the runner-up in the list of best keyboards for Android in 2015, sorted by The Verge. SwiftKey gained the spot because of its word predictions, auto-correction, themes and customisation settings.