Microsoft is working with Reddit to roll out a series of artificial intelligence features for Bing, the two companies announced today at a media event in San Francisco.
Launching today is a set of three new key features that Microsoft is referring to as ‘Intelligent Search.’ The Redmond, Washington-based tech giant says it wants to leverage Reddit’s large userbase, which produces 2.5 million comments per day across 138,000 active communities, to offer AI-enhanced capabilities for its Bing search engine.
First, users who type in ‘Reddit’ and the name of a Reddit community — Microsoft used the example of “aww” or “data is beautiful” — will discover relevant subreddits in a dedicated results section. Bing will also show the top conversations of the day in the particular community to give users a glimpse at what the community is all about.
Taking this further, Microsoft says that searching for the name of anyone who has done a Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’ (AMA) in the past will bring up their their previous or upcoming discussion threads, along with additional information about the person in question. Meanwhile, searching ‘Reddit AMAs’ in general will produce a set of popular AMAs for the user to go through as well.
Finally, Bing will determine which questions are best answered with Reddit conversations and bring those conversations to the top of the page for easy access.
While these features are intended for all Bing users, Microsoft is also rolling out a series of new tools for businesses. With the help of analytics service Socialgist, Microsoft is bringing Reddit’s data and API to Power BI, which uses Microsoft’s own AI and analytics to assist brands and marketers with data management.
Specifically, businesses will be able to use the Power BI solution templates suite to monitor and compare their Reddit footprint across all communities.
According to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, the partnership with Microsoft allows both platforms to offer services that neither could deliver on its own. “We can actually handle complicated, nuanced questions,” Ohanian said in a presentation.
He added that Reddit has a unique set of data that can’t be found on any other platform in the world, demonstrated by the varied in-depth threads covering all kinds of subjects. As well, Ohanian said that the ability to upvote and share helpful answers makes Reddit a useful informational tool on the internet.
On the other hand, Ohanian mentioned that Bing’s ability to analyze data from Reddit means that users will be given a wider range of search results that wouldn’t have been possible before.
More information on the Bing and Reddit partnership can be found here.
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