Microsoft has reportedly warned two unnamed search engines that rely on Bing’s search data to power their AI chatbots that they will be prohibited from accessing Microsoft’s search data altogether if they continue to use it with their AI tools. While Microsoft licenses Bing’s search data to numerous search engines, including DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and You.com, amongst others, it apparently draws the line at using the search index to power AI chatbots, considering the use of Bing’s data in this way to be a violation of contract. Microsoft has stated that it will work with these search engines to find a path forward but has not yet responded to requests for comment on whether it has taken action against any such partners. Since companies like Google have introduced their takes on OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, the move can be understood as an effort by Microsoft to make its search data exclusive to Bing’s chatbot, which is already powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model and is capable of various functions.
Microsoft tells AI chatbot competitors to cease using Bing’s search data, according to reports.
