Microsoft introduces anonymous access to Bing Chat

Microsoft’s Bing Chat caused quite a stir when it was launched, but its accessibility was limited by certain conditions. Now there is good news for users: the mandatory Microsoft account requirement for Bing Chat has been officially abolished.

Microsoft reveals anonymous access to Bing

Chat Michael Schechter, the vice president of Growth and Distribution at Microsoft, announced via Twitter that anonymous access to Bing Chat bots will now be made available to all users. With this anonymous access, it is no longer necessary to log in with a Microsoft account to ask questions via Bing Chat.

As some of you have noticed, we’ve started rolling out unauthenticated chat access on Bing. Seeing only 5 chat turns per session? Sign in to have longer conversations.

— Michael Schechter (@mikeschechter) May 17, 2023

There are no restrictions on the types of questions you can ask on Bing Chat without a Microsoft account, and the quality of answers given remains unchanged. You can still select the “Creative,” “Balanced” and “Accurate” modes, just as users with a Microsoft account do. However, anonymous access to Bing Chat does not offer all the benefits of the chat service.

Limitations of anonymous access to Bing Chat

The only real limitation of this anonymous access is the number of questions you can ask. Schechter clarified that you can only ask five questions per session. With this limit of five questions, the AI chatbot will give you five answers.

By logging into Bing with your Microsoft account, you can get around this limitation. If you don’t already have a Microsoft account, it’s easy to create one. Once you are logged into Bing with a Microsoft account, you will have 20 questions available to you per session.

Give Bing Chat a chance without a Microsoft account If having a Microsoft account has stopped you from trying Bing Chat, now is the perfect time to test it out. Note that you still need the Microsoft Edge browser to use the chatbot. Microsoft Edge can also be used without creating a Microsoft account.