Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft's AI assistant built into Windows, Edge, and Bing
Bing Chat was Microsoft’s first big move into AI-assisted search. It put a conversational assistant next to the Bing search box, so you could ask a question and get a written answer with links to sources instead of scanning a page of results. Microsoft later renamed and expanded it as Copilot, and the assistant now works across the web, in the Edge browser, in Windows, and in standalone mobile and desktop apps.
As a search companion, Copilot summarizes pages, compares products, plans trips, and answers follow-ups while keeping the context of the conversation. It cites the sites it used, which lets you check the answer. Voice conversations, image understanding, image generation, and the ability to look at your screen add other ways to ask. Copilot Search inside Bing blends AI answers with traditional results for people who want both.
The consumer service is free with usage limits, and paid plans increase limits and add features. Microsoft’s business version, Microsoft 365 Copilot, is a separate product that works with work documents. Answers can be wrong or oversimplified, so important claims need checking against the sources. Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, and ChatGPT search are the main competitors. People who ask about Bing Chat today are mostly looking at Microsoft Copilot.