Microsoft announces surprise event for tomorrow with Bing ChatGPT expected

Microsoft is holding a major news event tomorrow on February 7th. The software giant first mailed out invites to an in-person event at the company’s Redmond headquarters last week and is now officially announcing the event minutes after Google made its ChatGPT rival official.

Microsoft’s event starts at 10AM PT / 1PM ET on February 7th, and the company isn’t teasing much ahead of time. But it’s likely the company will focus on its rumored ChatGPT integration into Bing and its broader partnership with OpenAI.

The invite says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will “share some progress on a few exciting projects,” so expect a number of important announcements. The invite comes just days after Microsoft extended its OpenAI partnership in a $10 billion deal that will see it become the exclusive cloud partner for OpenAI. Microsoft’s cloud services will power all OpenAI workloads across products, API services, and research.

Microsoft’s event also comes just moments after Google announced its own ChatGPT rival, Bard. The “experimental conversational AI service” is only being tested by a limited group right now, but Google promises to open it up to wider public availability in the coming weeks.

Microsoft’s response to Google’s ChatGPT rival will come in the form of ChatGPT integration into Bing search results. This integration appears to have briefly leaked last week, with some Bing users spotting a new chat section with a chatbot-like UI for obtaining answers from Microsoft’s search engine. Microsoft simply refers to this as “the new Bing” that will provide “complete answers” to real questions.

Microsoft is also planning to deploy OpenAI’s various models into its own consumer and enterprise products. Outside of Bing, there are rumors of Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook getting OpenAI technology. Microsoft recently launched Microsoft Teams Premium with features powered by OpenAI.

Microsoft’s event will be also be held a day before Google holds its own event about search and AI on February 8th. The recent launch of ChatGPT has reportedly raised alarms within Google, and the sudden announcement of Bard just a day before Microsoft’s event suggests that the search giant is very much spooked.

We’re hoping to see a lot more of this ChatGPT integration in Bing today, and just how Microsoft plans to weave OpenAI models throughout its products.

Microsoft won’t be livestreaming this special event, but The Verge is in Redmond to cover all of the announcements in our live blog coverage that kicks off at 1PM ET on February 7th.