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Bing AI may be getting crushed in the battle against Google search – but Microsoft might not care
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Microsoft doubtless hoped that the launch of Bing AI would help attract users to the Bing search site, but that hasn’t happened going by some fresh stats.

Statcounter has just aired some figures on search volume and the bad news (for Microsoft) is that Bing’s share of the search engine market in the US has dropped by half a percentage point.

Bing was on 7.4% this time last year, but is now on 6.9%, whereas Google has notched up from 86.7% in 2022 to 88% now.

Okay, so it’s not a big drop for Bing, but nonetheless, it shows that – at least according to one source – Microsoft’s AI chatbot hasn’t made any difference to its search traffic.

The better news in these stats (spotted by Windows Central) is that Edge is up 1% in the browser market, but it’s only on 5.5% in total, so Google’s Chrome remains just as dominant as its search engine.

Analysis: A reversal of priorities?

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Bing AI not helping Microsoft’s search traffic efforts. A few months ago, Statcounter’s global stats also showed that Bing.com traffic fell slightly (to be fair, by 0.04% which is margin of error stuff, so effectively it stayed the same). The global stats for October 2023 also show a slight drop year-on-year.

The broad conclusion, then, is that Bing AI is not managing to drive any meaningful level of traffic to Microsoft’s search engine.

Does Microsoft really care overly about that, though? Maybe not so much now we’d suggest.

While the initial aim with Bing AI (or a big part of it) was to boost the attractiveness of Bing.com, since the launch of the chatbot, the AI explosion has been so pronounced – and the bandwagon so attention-grabbing – that artificial intelligence has become overrulingly important itself.

By which we mean that Bing search considerations, or persuading folks to adopt Windows 11 to get the Copilot AI (essentially integrated Bing with bells and whistles, though not many of the latter yet), have now taken a back seat.

If a fresh rumor is to be believed, Microsoft is bringing Copilot to Windows 10 – a surprising move after the software giant said that the older OS was no longer getting any new features (except for very minor tweaks – and the AI assistant most definitely is a major upgrade).

What this shows – if true – is that Microsoft is less worried about encouraging Windows 11 adoption (which has been seriously slow) and using Copilot as a carrot to persuade upgrades, and more concerned about getting all the many folks on Windows 10 using its AI, bolstering the figures for that.

We can believe this might be the case, given that in the bigger picture, AI has become such a huge deal – with everyone getting in on the act, and for example the likes of Nvidia making a ton of profit from its AI-targeted GPUs. Team Green is very keenly focused on those products now, to the extent that we even worry about the future of the best gaming GPUs (the GeForce ones, that is).

It’s likely the end goal is shifting to Microsoft advancing its AI tech across web properties and its desktop OS ecosystem alike, getting people used to Bing or Copilot being their everyday helper – and that being the primary goal.

Rather than leveraging AI to push the company’s other products, Microsoft is now prioritizing the other way round, possibly. Maybe also thinking that if its AI systems gain enough clout, users will follow to other products eventually, anyway.

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Google might muck up desktop search with a new Discovery Feed
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The line between the Google experience on desktop and mobile is beginning to blur as the company may introduce a Discovery Feed to its search engine for web browsers.

This nugget of information comes from tech news site MSPowerUser, which recently discovered the update. The feed is similar to what you see on Bing and the Google smartphone app although it does add a bit more. In addition to displaying headlines from articles, you get the local weather forecast, stock market information for three corporations, and sports scores on the right side. A Google representative told TheVerge this is nothing more than an experiment “currently being run in India”. No word if the redesign will make its way to other countries.

Potentially limited

This wouldn’t be the first time the tech giant has messed around with the clean front page of its search engine. 9To5Google has an interesting timeline showcasing various tweaks that have been made to the front page. At one point, there was even a section dedicated to displaying news stories on the COVID-19 pandemic. The biggest difference with the older styles is they consisted of a few widgets at the bottom of the screen.

The current test has content taking up large portions of the screen, pushing the search bar to the top of the window. The layout becomes way more cluttered.

This wouldn’t be so bad if there was a way to disable the feature, or at the very least, tweak it. Unfortunately, this might not happen. Android Police in their report points out Google’s Discovery Feed on smartphones cannot be disabled or even customized. It’s totally at the mercy of website owners who want their content to reach the right audience. The feed will show articles related to a person’s interests, but that’s as far as it goes regarding customization.

If you can't beat them…

Of course, there’s no guarantee the experiment will become official, although it is an interesting insight into what Google is thinking of introducing to its search engine. On October 12, the company began testing an “image generation tool on the AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE).” Again, similar to Bing, it gives the search engine the ability to create images according to a text prompt.

It is a little funny to see Google chase after Bing like this. For years, it’s always felt like Bing was always playing second fiddle, but now with the advent of AI, the tables have seemingly turned. What else will Google adopt from Microsoft if it’s willing to go further? Maybe we’ll see a Chrome version of Microsoft Copilot someday soon, though it will still be called Google Assistant.

While we’re on the topic of AI, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best AI art generators in 2023. 

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Amazon says you might have to pay for Alexa’s AI features in the future
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Amazon might be mulling a subscription charge for Alexa’s AI features at some point down the road – though that may not be for some time yet, by the sound of things.

This nugget of info emerged from a Bloomberg interview with Dave Limp, who is SVP of Amazon Devices & Services currently, though he is leaving the company later this year. (Whispers on the grapevine are that Panos Panay, a big-hitting exec who just left Microsoft, will replace Limp).

Bloomberg’s Dave Lee broadly observed that the future of Alexa could involve a more sophisticated AI assistant, but one that device owners would need to fork out to subscribe to.

This would be an avenue of monetization, giving that the previous hope for spinning out some extra cash – having folks order more stuff online using Alexa, bolstering revenue that way – just hasn’t worked out for Amazon (not in any meaningful fashion, at least).

After Limp talked about Amazon pushing forward using generative AI to build out Alexa’s features, Lee fired out a question about whether there’ll come a time when those Alexa AI capabilities won’t be free – and are offered via a subscription instead.

Limp replied in no uncertain terms: “Yes, we absolutely think that,” noting the costs of training the AI model (properly), and then adding: “But before we would start charging customers for this – and I believe we will – it has to be remarkable.”

Analysis: Superhuman assistance?

Amazon Alexa new

Dave Limp (above) is currently SVP of Amazon Devices & Services, but is leaving the company later this year. (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

So, there’s your weighty caveat. Limp makes it clear, in fact, that expectations would be built around the realization of a ‘superhuman’ assistant if Amazon was to charge for Alexa’s AI chops as outlined.

Limp clarifies that Alexa, as it is now, almost certainly won’t be charged for, and that the contemporary Alexa will remain free. He also suggested that Amazon has no idea of a pricing scheme yet for any future AI-powered Alexa that is super-smart.

This means the paid-for Alexa AI skills we’re talking about would be highly prized and a long way down the road for development with Amazon’s assistant. This isn’t anything that will remotely happen soon, but what it is, nonetheless, is a clear enough signal that this path of monetization is one Amazon is fully considering traveling down. Eventually.

As to exactly what timeframe we might be talking about, Limp couldn’t be drawn to commit beyond it not being “decades” or “years” away, with the latter perhaps hinting that maybe this could happen sooner than we may imagine.

We think it’ll be a difficult sell for Amazon in the nearer-term, though. Especially as plans are currently being pushed through to shove adverts into Prime Video early next year, and you’ll have to pay to avoid watching those ads. (As a subscriber to Prime, even though you’re paying for the video streaming service – and other benefits – you’ll still get adverts unless you stump up an extra fee).

If Amazon is seen to be watering down the value proposition of its services too much, or trying to force a burden of monetization in too many different ways, that’ll always run the risk of provoking a negative reaction from customers. In short, if the future of a super-sophisticated Alexa is indeed paying for AI skills, we’re betting this won’t be anytime soon – and the results better be darn impressive.

We must admit, we have trouble visualizing the latter, too, especially when as it currently stands, we can’t get Alexa to understand half the internet radio stations we want to listen to, a pretty basic duty for the assistant.

Okay, so Amazon did have some interesting new stuff to show off with Alexa’s development last week, but we remain skeptical on how that’ll pan out in the real-world, and obviously more so on how this new ‘superhuman’ assistant will be in the further future. In other words, we’ll keep heaping the salt on for the time being…

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Windows Copilot might be the biggest change Microsoft has ever made to its long-running OS
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Clippy, that helpful paperclip sprite that used to watch your work in Microsoft Word and do its best to help you, was never that smart, or even that deeply integrated with Microsoft's popular computing platform.

Now imagine if Clippy got a brain and body transplant that made it a true genius and then hooked it into the deepest parts of Windows 11. That's Windows Copilot, which was among the big reveals at Microsoft's 2023 Surface Event.

Microsoft showed off a lot of Copilot demos during its packed AI and Surface launch event, but it wasn't until I got an up-close and personal demo of the Copilot preview in action on a Windows 11 system that I truly understood it and the ramifications for the next generation of Windows 11 users.

When the Windows 11 update arrives on September 26, it will bring with it the Copilot preview. Microsoft tells me that it will work with every PC that supports Windows 11.

To be clear, Copilot is not an app. It's marginally a utility. It's more like the voice inside Windows 11 head, a consciousness that is fully aware of everything Windows 11 can do, and much of what you're doing on Windows 11.

Copilot combines all of Microsoft's best AI work to date. It can bring a large language model (LLM) to understand text, and context, and produce fresh text. It integrates Bing Chat to make it conversational (and also supports voice, though I did not see that in my demos).

Two things, though, make Copilot feel like a true part of the Windows 11 experience. The first is, crucially, that Windows 11 copy and paste triggers Copilot, basically waking it up to the possibility of working directly with you.

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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In the demo I saw, we opened a Word document full of a massive list of things to do in New York City – there's nothing like a sea of gray text to make the eyes glaze over.

Copilot isn't pushy like Clippy. It didn't pop up immediately asking if it could help. Instead, copying the text set it off.

The fact that Copilot can see that you're performing one of the most fundamental Windows 11 tasks, and using that action to help you, is a big deal. Once Copilot sees the clipboard text, it politely asks if you want to use that text to chat. Once we did that, Copilot's chat asked what we wanted to do with it (Revise, Summarize, Expand, Explain). You can be quite specific in your requests, so we asked for distances between Tribeca and our hotel.

Copilot is deep inside Windows, but it's not shut out from the outside. As with Bing Chat, Copilot sources the web for answers. In fact, it synthesizes the best answers and then, yes, provides citations and links for it all.

Copilot tries to be extra helpful by going beyond the initial request. In this instance, it also quickly served up some local attractions.

The other thing that tells you Copilot isn't simply a plugin or add-on is that it has its own invoke and dismiss key combo: You use the Windows button and 'c.'

In my opinion, you don't get the keys unless you're part of Windows and not just a temporary tenant.

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Windows 11 Copilot

(Image credit: Future)
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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Other demos further solidified my belief that this is not your father's Windows 11.

When we dragged a food photo from Outlook into the chat windows, Copilot asked what we wanted to do with it. We requested instructions on how to make the unidentified dish. It took a moment (Copilot preview isn't always that fast) for it to identify it as Shashuka, and then offer detailed instructions on how to cook it.

Copilot further demonstrated its integration by working seamlessly with Windows Snip (which always sends snipped images to the clipboard). We snipped a math problem image and, naturally, when we asked, Copilot helped us solve it.

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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Windows 11 Copilot

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When we told Copilot we wanted to know how to focus at work, it used its platform integration to help guide us through Windows 11's Focus settings.

Copilot can be used for the most prosaic of Windows tasks, as well. Our demo desktop was getting a little cluttered, so we asked Copilot to “snap my windows.” It quickly organized the desktop and offered advice on how to make adjustments.

Windows Copilot Preview will simply arrive with the Windows 11 update. You won't have to install anything and there's no requirement that you use it. However, based on what I saw, if you ignore Copilot, you may be missing out on an entirely new way of working with the World's most widely used desktop platform.

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Google Bard update reveals a more powerful AI – but it might scare privacy purists
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Google has built a new model for Bard which it is calling the most capable iteration of the AI yet.

Google provided an update on the new version of Bard which it calls “more intuitive, imaginative and responsive than ever before,” offering greater levels of quality and accuracy in the chatbot’s responses.

A whole bunch of new features have been brought into the mix for Bard, and that starts with support for 40+ languages, and some tight integration with existing Google products elsewhere.

That includes giving Bard the ability to get its hooks into your emails in Gmail, and data in Google Drive and Docs, meaning you can get the AI to find info across your various files, or indeed summarize a piece of content if needed.

Bard will also be able to pull data in real-time as needed from Google Maps, Google’s travel features (hotels and flights), and YouTube, all of which will be extensions that are enabled by default (you can disable them if you wish, but they’re switched on by default in the new Bard).

Another big move here is the ability to check Bard’s answers. Not too sure about any given response from the AI? A ‘Google It’ button can be clicked to bring up additional info around any query, which is drawn from Google search (where supported), so you can check for yourself to see if there’s any doubt, or difference of opinion, elsewhere online compared to what Bard is telling you.

A further fresh introduction gives Bard users the ability to share a conversation via a public link, allowing others to continue that conversation with Google’s AI themselves, should they wish.

Analysis: The distant but distinct sound of alarm bells

This is indeed a major update for Bard, and there are some useful elements in here for sure. Better quality and accuracy, and the ability to check Bard’s responses, are obviously welcome features.

Some other stuff will set some alarm bells ringing for folks, particularly the more privacy-conscious out there. Do you really want Bard’s tendrils snaking into every corner of your Google Drive, Docs, and Gmail? Doesn’t that sound like the beginning of a scenario of a nightmarish overreach from the AI?

Well, Google is pretty careful here to clarify that your personal data absolutely isn’t being hoovered up to train Bard in any way. As the company puts it: “Your Google Workspace data won’t be used to train Bard’s public model and you can disable access to it at any time.”

So, the only use of the data will be to furnish you with convenient replies to queries, and that could be pretty handy. Know you’ve got a document somewhere on a certain topic, but can’t remember where it is in your Google account, or what it’s called? You should be able to prompt Bard to find it for you.

Don’t like the idea of Bard accessing your stuff in any way, shape, or form? Then you don’t have to use these abilities, they can be switched off (and the mentioned extensions don’t have to be enabled). Indeed, whatever assurances Google makes about Bard not snuffling around in your data for its own purposes, there will be folks immediately reaching for the ‘off’ switch in these cases, you can absolutely bank on it.

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The Meta Quest 3 feature I was most excited about might come at a price
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The Meta Quest 3 launch event is less than a month away, and excitement for the new VR headset is reaching boiling point. But if this leak is correct, the feature I was most excited about might require a pricey add-on.

Ahead of the Oculus Quest 2  successor’s reveal the online retailer UnboundXR.eu has seemingly posted prices for several Quest 3 accessories. This includes a carrying case for €79.99 (around $ 86 / £68 / AU$ 134), an Elite Strap with Battery for €149.99 ($ 161 / £128 / AU$ 252), and a Silicone Face Interface for €49.99 ($ 54 / £42 / AU$ 84). These were spotted by u/Fredricko on Reddit, but the store pages have since been hidden. 

The one that’s most disappointing to me is seeing the Meta Quest 3 Charging Dock for €149.99 ($ 161 / £128 / AU$ 252). 

Thanks to a different Meta Quest 3 leak (courtesy of a US Federal Communication Agency filing) it looked like the new gadget would be getting a charging dock – my favorite Meta Quest Pro feature. Thanks to this peripheral I’ve never gone to wear my Quest Pro and found it’s out of charge – something I can’t say about my Quest 2. The dock also makes it easy to keep the headset and controllers powered up without needing to use multiple power outlets for charging – an issue with headsets such as the HTC Vive XR Elite, which requires three outlets for charging instead of one.

The Meta Quest 3 and its controllers are sat in a white plastic dock in an official looking image

The leaked Quest 3 dock. (Image credit: Meta)

Most importantly, this dock was included in the price of the Meta Quest Pro – which was $ 1,500 / £1,500 / AU$ 2,450 at launch and is now $ 999.99 / £999.99 / AU$ 1,729.99.  According to Meta, the cheapest Meta Quest 3 will be $ 499 / £499 / AU$ 829 / €499  so I was already a little worried that the dock wouldn’t come with the cheaper headset – forcing us to pay a little extra for its advantages. What I didn’t expect, however, was that the dock might be roughly a third of the price of the new machine, as this leak has suggested.

While these leaks come from a semi-official source – a Reddit user claims UnboundXR has said the prices are from Meta directly  – it’s still worth taking the information with a pinch of salt. They could be best-guess placeholder prices while the store builds the product pages ahead of the Quest 3 launch later this year. What’s more, the peripherals UnboudXR listed might still come packaged with the headset with the listings here merely being for replacement parts. We won’t know how pricey the add-ons really are until the headset launches at Meta Connect 2023.

Out with the old

If the price of these XR peripherals has got you down, I’m sorry to say the bad news doesn’t stop there. According to separate leaks, the Quest 3 may not be compatible with your Quest 2 accessories – forcing you to pay for all-new add-ons if you want them.

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This is with respect to the headset strap; @ZGFTECH on X (formerly Twitter) posted a picture seemingly showing a side-by-side of the Quest 3 strap and the Quest 2 Elite strap with the two having pretty different designs – suggesting the old strap will be incompatible with the new hardware. I’m still holding out hope however that my Quest Pro charging dock will be compatible with the Quest 3, though given the new dock’s wildly different design, I’m not holding my breath.

Admittedly this shouldn’t be entirely unexpected – it’s not unheard of for tech peripherals to be exclusive to specific devices. But it’s something to keep in mind if you’re looking to upgrade to Meta's latest VR hardware.

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Apple may be considering a cheaper Vision Pro model – so people might be able to actually buy the headset
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The Apple Vision Pro is probably the most ambitious product to be announced this year, combining an interesting design and staggering price tag with some exciting-sounding tech that could make it really stand out from other virtual reality headsets (not that Apple wants the Vision Pro to be considered a VR headset). It features two 4K microLED panels that at the moment are only sourced from Sony, with the manufacturer capping annual display production at just a million units dedicated to the headset. 

This puts a spanner in the works, as not only will Apple be unable to produce as many units as possibly needed, but it also means the company has no negotiating power with component prices, as only Sony is making them. However, it seems like two Chinese suppliers are currently being evaluated to produce the microLED technology, which could enable mass production and hopefully, a cheaper model. 

According to The Information, two people “with direct knowledge of the matter” claim that Apple is “testing advanced displays” by two companies for possible inclusion in future models. 

A source cited in the article also hints at the possibility of a non-pro, more financially accessible, version of the Vision headset, stating that Apple is evaluating BOE’s and SeeYa’s – the two companies mentioned above –  displays for future models of both the Vision Pro and a cheaper headset internally code-named N109, which The Information previously reported was in an early stage of development.

The cheaper the better 

Apple already uses BOE for iPad and iPhone displays, so there is a good chance that they would collaborate again for Vison Pro panels. When the augmented reality headset was announced in June of this year, the steep price tag of $ 3,500 caused concern about who could actually afford to buy one.

In a time when people are concerned with the cost of living, who is this device actually for? During WWDC 2023 many people felt there was no clear audience for the Vision Pro, and at $ 3,500 not many people would be willing to shell out just to give the experimental technology a try. 

Hopefully, as Apple searches for cheaper display manufacturers and considers a more ‘basic’ Vision headset, it will give more people a chance to try out the impressive tech. Obviously, a cheaper alternative will have watered-down features, but I would rather spend half the price on a headset I can afford, that may be missing a few features than to be completely priced out of such exciting tech. 

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The Meta Quest 3 might get my favorite Quest Pro feature
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The Meta Quest 3 is reportedly getting a charging dock, as per a US regulatory filing, meaning it’s stealing yet another great feature from Meta’s best VR headset.

With this charging dock – which sounds exactly like the one that came with the Meta Quest Pro – you wouldn’t need to plug the headset into a USB-C charging cable. Instead, you’d just set it down on the base when you’re finished using it, and it’ll recharge via contact charging (metal pins on the base line up with contact points on the headset, and the charge is passed through this connection).

Interestingly, while the base will use contact charging for the headset, it will apparently use 2.5W wireless charging for the controllers (by smartphone standards this is low, but for much simpler controllers we expect charging will be speedy enough). This is a minor upgrade over the Quest Pro’s base, as wireless charging requires you to be a lot less precise with how you place the controllers on the base.

It’s because of this wireless charging change that we know about the base this far in advance of the Meta Quest 3's September 27 official announcement at Meta Connect 2023 – it was listed with the US Federal Communication Agency (FCC), which is tasked with certifying all products with electromagnetic emissions. If the base only used contact charging Meta wouldn’t need to get FCC certification for it, and it would have been kept under wraps for a little longer.

A must-have Quest 3 accessory

Charging docks are not all that exciting – I’d say the Quest Pro's was the most mundane upgrade that headset offered over its predecessors. At the same time, it’s also the best improvement by a country mile because of how much it improves the gadget’s usability.

The Meta Quest Pro on its charging pad on a desk, in front of a window with the curtain closed

The Quest Pro and its controllers on the charging dock (Image credit: Meta)

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve strapped on my Quest 2 only to discover that the battery is completely dry because I forgot to plug it in when I last stopped using it. In the roughly eight months I’ve had a Quest Pro I’ve never had the same issue, and that’s entirely thanks to the charging dock – when I’m done, I just put the headset back in its place and it instantly starts recharging.

The controller charging is handy too. Sure, the Quest 2 handset’s batteries need changing infrequently, but the less I have to think about whether I have AA batteries at the home the better. What’s more, the base is a significantly simpler solution for charging controllers than what other VR brands have used – when I was testing the HTC Vive XR Elite I found that it didn’t come with a helpful charging base, but with separate charging cables for each controller and the headset, necessitating the use of three plug sockets for charging instead of one.

The only question that remains is if the base will be included in the Quest 3’s box or sold as an add-on. Given Meta’s open desire to keep the Quest 3 relatively budget friendly with a streamlined suite of features we can see a world in which it sells the charging dock separately. Equally, $ 499 / £499 / AU$ 829 is a decent chunk of change, and we hope Meta wouldn’t nickel and dime us by forcing us to pay extra for charging accessories that improve the experience significantly.

We’ll just have to wait and see what it announces at Meta Connect 2023.

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Stopped using ChatGPT? These six handy new features might tempt you back
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ChatGPT's AI smarts might be improving rapidly, but the chatbot's basic user interface can still baffle beginners. Well, that's about to improve with six ChatGPT tweaks that should give its usability a welcome boost.

OpenAI says the tweaks to ChatGPT's user experience will be rolling out “over the next week”, with four of the improvements available to all users and two of them targeted at ChatGPT Plus subscribers (which costs $ 20 / £16 / AU$ 28 per month).

Starting with those improvements for all users, OpenAI says you'll now get “prompt examples” at the beginning of a new chat because a “blank page can be intimidating”. ChatGPT already shows a few example prompts on its homepage (below), but we should soon see these appear in new chats, too.

Secondly, ChatGPT will also give you “suggested replies”. Currently, when the chatbot has answered your question, you're simply left with the 'Send a message' box. If you're a seasoned ChatGPT user, you'll have gradually learned how to improve your ChatGPT prompts and responses, but this should speed up the process for beginners.  

A third small improvement you'll see soon is that you'll stay logged into ChatGPT for much longer. OpenAI says “you'll no longer be logged out every two weeks”, and when you do log in you'll be “greeted with a much more welcoming page”. It isn't clear how long log-ins will now last, but we're interested to see how big an improvement that landing page is.

A bigger fourth change, though, is the introduction of keyboard shortcuts (below). While there are only six of these (see below), some of them could certainly be handy timesavers – for example, there are shortcuts to 'copy last response' (⌘/Ctrl + Shift + C) and 'toggle sidebar' (⌘/Ctrl + Shift + C). There's also an extra one to bring up the full list (⌘/Ctrl + /).

A laptop screen on a blue background showing the ChatGPT keyboard shortcuts

(Image credit: Future)

What about those two improvements for ChatGPT Plus subscribers? The biggest one is the ability to upload multiple files for ChatGPT to analyze. You'll soon be able to ask the chatbot to analyze data and serve up insights across multiple files. This will be available in the Code Interpreter Beta, a new tool that lets you convert files, make charts, perform data analysis, trim videos and more.

Lastly, ChatGPT Plus subscribers will finally find that the chatbot reverts to its GPT-4 model by default. Currently, there's a toggle at the top of the ChatGPT screen that lets you switch from the older GPT-3.5 model to GPT-4 (which is only available to Plus subscribers), but this will now remain switched to the latter if you're subscriber. 

Collectively, these six changes certainly aren't as dramatic as the move to GPT-4 in March, which delivered a massive upgrade – for example, OpenAI stated that GPT-4 is “40% more likely to provide factual content” than GPT-3.5. But they should make it more approachable for beginners, who. may have left the chatbot behind after the initial hype.

Analysis: ChatGPT hits an inevitable plateau

A laptop screen on a blue background showing the ChatGPT homepage

The move to GPT-4 (above), which is only available to Plus subscribers, was the last major change to ChatGPT. (Image credit: Future)

ChatGPT's explosive early hype saw it become the fastest-growing consumer app of all time – according to a UBS study, it hit 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after it launched. 

But that hype is now on the wane, with Similarweb reporting that ChatGPT traffic was down 10% in June – so it needs some new tools and features to keep people returning.

These six improvements won't see the chatbot hit the headlines again, but they will bring much-needed improvements to ChatGPT's usability and accessibility. Other recent boosts like the arrival of ChatGPT on Android will also help get casual users tinkering again, as ChatGPT alternatives like Google Bard continue to improve.

While the early AI chatbot hype has certainly fizzled out, thanks to reports that the ChatGPT will always be prone to making stuff up and some frustrations that it's increasingly producing 'dumber' answers, these AI helpers can certainly still be useful tools when used in the right way.

If you're looking for some inspiration to get you re-engaged, check out our guides to some great real-world ChatGPT examples, some extra suggestions of what ChatGPT can do, and our pick of the best ChatGPT extensions for Chrome.

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ChatGPT use declines as users complain about ‘dumber’ answers, and the reason might be AI’s biggest threat for the future
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Is ChatGPT old news already? It seems impossible, with the explosion of AI popularity seeping into every aspect of our lives – whether it’s digital masterpieces forged with the best AI art generators or helping us with our online shopping.

But despite being the leader in the AI arms race – and powering Microsoft’s Bing AI – it looks like ChatGPT might be losing momentum. According to SimilarWeb, traffic to OpenAI’s ChatGPT site dropped by almost 10% compared to last month, while metrics from Sensor Tower also demonstrated that downloads of the iOS app are in decline too.

As reported by Insider, paying users of the more powerful GPT-4 model (access to which is included in ChatGPT Plus) have been complaining on social media and OpenAI’s own forums about a dip in output quality from the chatbot.

A common consensus was that GPT-4 was able to generate outputs faster, but at a lower level of quality. Peter Yang, a product lead for Roblox, took to Twitter to decry the bot’s recent work, claiming that “the quality seems worse”. One forum user said the recent GPT-4 experience felt “like driving a Ferrari for a month then suddenly it turns into a beaten up old pickup”.

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Why is GPT-4 suddenly struggling?

Some users were even harsher, calling the bot “dumber” and “lazier” than before, with a lengthy thread on OpenAI’s forums filled with all manner of complaints. One user, ‘bitbytebit’, described it as “totally horrible now” and “braindead vs. before”.

According to users, there was a point a few weeks ago where GPT-4 became massively faster – but at a cost of performance. The AI community has speculated that this could be due to a shift in OpenAI’s design ethos behind the more powerful machine learning model – namely, breaking it up into multiple smaller models trained in specific areas, which can act in tandem to provide the same end result while being cheaper for OpenAI to run.

OpenAI has yet to officially confirm this is the case, as there has been no mention of such a major change to the way GPT-4 works. It’s a credible explanation according to industry experts like Sharon Zhou, CEO of AI-building company Lamini, who described the multi-model idea as the “natural next step” in developing GPT-4.

AIs eating AIs

However, there’s another pressing problem with ChatGPT that some users suspect could be the cause of the recent drop in performance – an issue that the AI industry seems largely unprepared to tackle.

If you’re not familiar with the term ‘AI cannibalism’, let me break it down in brief: large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Google Bard scrape the public internet for data to be used when generating responses. In recent months, a veritable boom in AI-generated content online – including an unwanted torrent of AI-authored novels on Kindle Unlimited – means that LLMs are increasingly likely to scoop up materials that were already produced by an AI when hunting through the web for information.

An iPhone screen showing the OpenAI ChatGPT download page on the App Store

ChatGPT app downloads have slowed, indicating a decrease in overall public interest. (Image credit: Future)

This runs the risk of creating a feedback loop, where AI models ‘learn’ from content that was itself AI-generated, resulting in a gradual decline in output coherence and quality. With numerous LLMs now available both to professionals and the wider public, the risk of AI cannibalism is becoming increasingly prevalent – especially since there’s yet to be any meaningful demonstration of how AI models might accurately differentiate between ‘real’ information and AI-generated content.

Discussions around AI have largely focused on the risks it poses to society – for example, Facebook owner Meta recently declined to open up its new speech-generating AI to the public after it was deemed ‘too dangerous’ to be released. But content cannibalization is more of a risk to the future of AI itself; something that threatens to ruin the functionality of tools such as ChatGPT, which depend upon original human-made materials in order to learn and generate content.

Do you use ChatGPT or GPT-4? If you do, have you felt that there’s been a drop in quality recently, or have you simply lost interest in the chatbot? I’d love to hear from you on Twitter. With so many competitors now springing up, is it possible that OpenAI’s dominance might be coming to an end? 

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