Bing said it would remove the waiting list for its GPT-4-powered chat

Image credit: Microsoft/OpenAI

Microsoft’s Bing is enjoying the limelight for the first time in a decade after it released a GPT-powered interface last month. But the tech giant has so far been cautious about the pace at which it makes the new Bing offering – powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology – available to users. But it looks like Bing is bringing those walls down.

Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, appears to have lifted the waiting list from the new Bing, apparently allowing anyone to get immediate access to the new experience. Windows Central, which first spotted this change, said users don’t have to wait to try the new Bing any longer. TechCrunch tested this with a few email IDs (both new and old) and got access right away. However, not all email IDs we tested were immediately accessed.

Image credit: Screenshot by TechCrunch

While the new Bing landing page still displays the typical “Join the waiting list” button, you can log in and get access right away. We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update the story if we hear back.

Microsoft is holding an event called “reinventing productivity with AI” later Thursday at 11 A.M. While today’s agenda is limited to introducing AI-powered tools for Microsoft 356 (Office) and Dynamic 365 – the company’s Salesforce competitor – it would not be surprising if there is also an announcement related to Bing.

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

OpenAI’s technology has proven to be a hit for Bing, which recently reported reaching 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 looking to give it a whirl. After people were able to “jailbreak” the chatbot to say problematic things, Microsoft began testing various restrictions on the conversations. Earlier this week, it raised the limit to 15 rounds in a conversation and 150 messages a day.