Microsoft caps Bing chat sessions to five questions

Microsoft said the move would reduce confusion in its new AI-based Bing search engine stemming from overly long chat sessions.

Not a month has passed since Microsoft married its Bing search with ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) based chatbot. However, Microsoft claims user feedback has prompted it to modify the feature.

“Very long chat sessions can confuse the underlying chat model in the new Bing. To address these issues, we have implemented some changes to help focus the chat sessions. Starting today, the chat experience will be capped at 50 chat turns per day and five chat turns per session,” the company said.

According to Microsoft, the change will have little impact on most users since the majority arrive at the desired answers after five chat turns or less. Moreover, only 1% of queries exceed 50 chat turns per day.

Users who hit the limitation will be asked to start a new topic. Bing, the unexpected leader in the AI-based search engine race, said context needs to be cleared after each session to avoid confusing the AI.

Introducing AI-based capabilities into its search engine gave Bing a competitive edge against Google, the largest player in the market. Google tried to rush the introduction of its AI chatbot alternative, Bard, albeit unsuccessfully.

Bard returned inaccurate answers in a promotional video posted on Twitter and shown during a live press event, resulting in the company’s stock going down by 9%, an equivalent to more than a $100 billion loss in market value.

While AI-powered chatbots can provide articulate answers to complex questions, they’re not immune to mistakes. For example, AI models suffer from hallucinations that prompt chatbots to create something that looks very convincing but has no basis in the real world.