Microsoft to Retire Bing Search APIs, Shifting Focus to AI-Powered Alternatives

Microsoft Cuts Off Access to Bing Search Data as It Shifts Focus to Chatbots

Microsoft is limiting access to tools that boosted its rivals, but larger customers like DuckDuckGo say they won't be affected. Microsoft quietly announced earlier this week that it plans to shut down a longstanding tool supplying search engine startups and other software developers with a raw feed of Bing search results. The Bing Search APIs, or application programming interfaces, were once vital to many niche Google alternatives, but fell out of favor more recently as Microsoft hiked fees for the service and restricted its use. The shutoff, which is scheduled to begin on August 11, still came as a surprise to several developers who spoke with WIRED. Customers learned of it on Monday via an email from Microsoft and a post on its website. They were directed to consider using "Grounding with Bing Search as part of Azure AI Agents," a Microsoft service that allows chatbots like ChatGPT to augment AI-generated responses with "real-time public web data." Some developers view the AI-centric alternative as an insufficient replacement. Microsoft spokesperson Donny Turnbaugh says that the company is decommissioning the Bing Search APIs as it pivots to supporting the new offering, which "better meets market demand for having AI solutions." He added the company has a "support plan in place" and affected customers can reach out with questions, without providing more details. Brian Brown, chief business officer of privacy-focused search engine Brave, which stopped using the Bing Search APIs in 2023 after developing its own technology, says Microsoft "is sending a clear signal" to other search companies that it is tightening loose ends amid growing competition. The largest customers of the Bing APIs will retain their access after August 11, while smaller developers that were less profitable for Microsoft to support are being cut off sooner, according to a person familiar with the situation who was granted anonymity to protect industry relationships. But the shift may still raise concerns among big spenders about the long-term prospect of relying on Microsoft and prompt them to accelerate their internal efforts to develop alternatives. One of the bigger customers that is unaffected for now is the search engine DuckDuckGo, company spokesperson Kamyl Bazbaz confirmed to WIRED. "They're retiring the self-serve version," Bazbaz says. Brown says Brave's understanding is that companies that have inked private and long-term deals with Microsoft will maintain access to the APIs. Microsoft declined to comment about whether slashing costs was a motivation for the shutdown and if some customers would be exempted. On Tuesday, the company laid off about 6,000 employees, or about 3 percent of its workforce, in a move it described as necessary to reduce redundant management structures. The loss of the Bing APIs adds another layer of complexity to the already uncertain future of search engines, which have long been the most visible gateway to the web. The emergence of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots that can help users find information more efficiently has fueled fresh competition in the market for the first time in years. Antitrust investigations launched by US regulators are also starting to result in measures that could curb Google's dominance of search and put more public attention on competitors. But despite the buzz, Google has barely lost any market share so far.

Microsoft shuts off Bing Search APIs and recommends switching to AI

Tom Warren is a senior editor and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft is shutting off access to its Bing Search results for third-party developers. The software maker quietly announced the change earlier this week, noting that Bing Search APIs will be retired on August 11th and that "any existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely, and the product will no longer be available for usage or new customer signup." This abrupt removal of the Bing Search APIs will impact third-party app developers and rival search engines that tap into Microsoft's search results to power their services. Microsoft is now recommending that developers use "grounding with Bing Search as part of Azure AI Agents" as a replacement, which lets chatbots interact with web data from Bing. Wired reports that some big customers of Bing's APIs will retain access to the service after the August 11th cutoff. DuckDuckGo uses Bing to power its search engine, and it has confirmed that it will still have access. Other smaller developers won't be so lucky, though. Microsoft's move to cut off access to Bing Search APIs comes after the company has been hiking prices to access the data in recent years, and just a week before Microsoft's big Build developer conference. It also comes just days after the US Department of Justice asked a court to split up Google's ad tech empire.

Microsoft set to pull the plug on Bing Search APIs

Devs told to swap raw results for LLM-generated summaries as August shutdown looms Microsoft is retiring Bing Search APIs on August 11, directing customers toward AI products as an alternative. The Bing Search APIs allowed users to add search capabilities to their applications. The latest APIs included image, video, news, and web search. There are also organizations, such as DuckDuckGo, that source some search results from Bing. Microsoft confirmed: "Any existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely, and the product will no longer be available for usage or new customer signup." While users with longstanding agreements or contracts with Microsoft, like DuckDuckGo, will reportedly not be immediately affected, the message is clear: stop using the Bing Search APIs and rely on summaries generated by the company's LLMs. Microsoft added: "Customers may want to consider Grounding with Bing Search as part of Azure AI Agents. Grounding with Bing Search allows Azure AI Agents to incorporate real-time public web data when generating responses with an LLM." The solution may not satisfy customers used to raw search results. It's also not as if the service was free - Microsoft charged customers for using the APIs, and massively hiked the price in 2023. The increases were as much as 900 percent, depending on a customer's tier. Companies that absorbed the increases at the time now have another decision to make. Without Bing's search index immediately on tap, the choice is to either select another solution - the Brave Search API or Mojeek's Web Search API are two options - or accept the AI-powered alternative Microsoft suggests. One Reddit user described the impending discontinuation of the Bing Search APIs as the "end of an era." The action might indeed represent the end of an era, but it is also understandable (if unpalatable) considering the move to AI summaries in search results and the use of services such as ChatGPT instead of traditional search tools. The aggressive timeline is, however, not so understandable. August 11 is not far away, and considering the statement that "any existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely," affected developers will not have long to move to an alternative. ®

Microsoft will pull the plug on Bing Search APIs, to be replaced with AI

Microsoft is making a big change with its Bing search engine, with the announcement that Bing Search APIs will shut down later this year and AI services being the sole replacement. Developers who integrate search into their products (whether that be an app, the web, etc) can choose to leverage the Bing Search API to do this. Effectively ,it hands off the job of searching the web to an actual search engine. Microsoft is now shutting down this service, with "any existing instances" being "completely" shut down on August 11 of this year. Bing Search APIs will be retired on  August 11, 2025. Any existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely, and the product will no longer be available for usage or new customer signup. This leaves developers needing to find a replacement, and Microsoft's suggestion is to just use AI instead. The company says that its customers "may want to consider" using Azure AI Agents, which can use Bing Search on the user's behalf to generate responses. This likely won't work in all cases, though, especially if the goal was to bring back links rather than text answers. It all depends on the developer's use case, but it's a big shift in functionality. Wired reported on this change earlier this week, and confirmed with DuckDuckGo, one big name using Bing Search APIs, that nothing will be changing with its access. It's more likely that smaller developers will be affected by the shutdown.

Microsoft to Retire Bing Search APIs, Promote Azure AI Agents | PYMNTS.com

"Any existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely, and the product will no longer be available for usage or new customer signup," the company said in an Azure Update. Microsoft suggested in the update that customers may consider as an alternative Grounding with Bing Search as part of Azure AI Agents. "Grounding with Bing Search allows Azure AI Agents to incorporate real-time public web data when generating responses with an LLM," the update said. Bing Search APIs supply software developers with a raw feed of Bing search results, Wired reported Wednesday (May 14). The product's users include search engines that pay a fee to Microsoft and present the Bing search results to their own users. By limiting access to this search data, Microsoft is shifting its focus to chatbots, as Grounding with Bing Search is a service that enables chatbots to add real-time public web data to their AI-generated responses, according to the report. The new AI-powered system provides summaries rather than raw search results, per the report. Microsoft spokesperson Donny Turnbaugh told Wired that the company's pivot to this newer offering "better meets market demand for having AI solutions" and that Microsoft has a "support plan in place" for customers affected by the change. Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said in April 2023 that generative AI had triggered a "generational shift" in web search. Speaking of the state of web search and AI features Microsoft had added at the time, Nadella said that "when people use these new AI features, their engagement with Bing and Edge goes up. As we look towards a future where chat becomes a new way for people to seek information, consumers have real choice in business models and modalities with Azure-powered chat entry points across Bing, Edge, Windows and OpenAI's ChatGPT. We look forward to continuing this journey in what is a generational shift in the largest software category, search." On May 5, it was reported that Microsoft's strategy to install AI as a default feature in its software may be paying off, as the company saw a 10% rise in revenue from consumer subscriptions to Office 365 in the three months ending in March compared to a year ago.