Microsoft brings its A.I. chatbot to Bing app on iPhone and Android

Microsoft on Wednesday announced the preview release of its new Bing and Edge apps for iPhone and Android, which include new features like voice search and access to its AI chatbot.

In the Bing mobile app, users can tap the Bing icon to start a chat session, where they can ask a variety of questions via text or with their voices, according to a release. Answers can be displayed in bullet points, in simplified responses or in a traditional text format. Users will also be able to access updates for Bing through the homepage of the Edge mobile app, Microsoft said.

Microsoft also announced AI-powered Bing for Skype on Wednesday. Users can add Microsoft’s AI to group chats and ask it questions. The chatbot will provide answers for the whole group. People can ask Bing for suggestions on travel, or ask about the weather or about recent award shows, for example. Similar to the Bing mobile app, answers can be displayed in bullet points, simplified responses or text format.

Bing in Skype is available in a worldwide preview.

On Feb. 7, Microsoft held an event at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and it announced AI-powered updates to the company’s Bing search engine and Edge browser. The updates were initially released on desktop in a limited preview, meaning users get a finite number of queries to search during the initial period.

CEO Satya Nadella said that search powered by artificial intelligence is the biggest thing to happen to his company in the nine years he’s been at the helm.

“I have not seen something like this since I would say 2007-2008, when the cloud was just first coming out,” Nadella told CNBC’s Jon Fortt in an interview following Microsoft’s event.