Microsoft is trying to rebrand its Edge internet browser. No longer should its name remind you that its icon shortcut sits alone and forgotten at the edge of your Windows desktop. Now Microsoft is trying to claim Edge is on the cutting edge of AI. The Redmond tech giant has started calling its native internet explorer “Microsoft Edge: AI Browser.” If you think that’s already a little on the nose, expect more companies to do so in the coming year. The monicker appears when searching for Edge on Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store (though the “browser” is lowercase on Play Store, for some reason). Microsoft had already called it “your AI-powered browser” after adding Bing AI capabilities to it last year, but now the “AI” is right out front for people downloading the mobile app. The description for the app now talks up the browser’s GPT-4 capabilities with the built-in Copilot chatbot following on from Bing search. The browser also has access to OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 AI image generator model, accessible through the copilot. The Verge first noticed this name change. Microsoft updated the app store pages during the holiday break. Apple has some (purportedly) stringent privacy demands for apps available on its devices. The App Store description also dedicates a lot of time to describing the privacy features of Edge, noting that there’s “no search history saved” to Bing or users’ Microsoft accounts. However, in the company’s terms of service under its “AI Services” section, Microsoft does note it processes and stores your AI inputs “for purposes of monitoring for and preventing abusive or harmful uses or outputs of the service.” The company has previously claimed in a blog post last year that Bing Enterprise Chat, the business-oriented version of the Bing AI, doesn’t save chat data and that “no one at Microsoft can view your data.”
Full report : Microsoft’s ‘AI Browser’ Edge Is a Precursor to the ‘AI’-ification of Everything.
