Microsoft has brought its Bing chatbot to everyday digital life with the integration of its AI-powered software into the popular SwiftKey keyboard, available on Android devices. The feature launched on Wednesday, giving SwiftKey beta users access to the chatbot by pressing a button wherever they are on their device.
The Bing Chat integration offers users the usual chatbot mode as well as a tone mode, allowing them to rewrite any text on their keyboard. For those who have previously been using the Bing mobile app for the same purpose, this integration can make it redundant.
If you want to try out this new Bing Chat integration, you’ll need to download the beta version of the SwiftKey from the Google Play Store. Pedram Rezaei, Microsoft’s CTO of mobile and commerce, confirmed that the feature has been slowly rolling out. Unfortunately, there’s still no word on when iOS users will be able to try out the integration.
The tech giant first acquired SwiftKey in 2016, after the outwardly popular keyboard was praised for its autocorrect and theme support. However, the company discontinued support for the iOS version last year, before quickly returning the app to the App Store again. Rezaei mentioned that they’ll be investing heavily in the keyboard software and now with the integration of their AI-powered version of Bing, it looks like those efforts are paying off.
Naturally, Microsoft isn’t the only one in the business and the sheer number of AI-powered keyboards already present on iOS means competition is already fierce. Of these, Paragraph AI stands out for providing a neat interface for generating and understanding text in any given app and is quickly rising on the App Store.
Microsoft’s integration of Bing with SwiftKey looks to take the chatbot to millions of Android users worldwide. With a strong focus on AI-powered features, it looks like the tech giant will continue to invest heavily in their acquisition.
