Generative AI continues to take over Microsoft’s platform, as the tech giant recently added Bing powered by ChatGPT to its SwiftKey beta app for Android.
For those who don’t know, hot key (opens in a new tab) is a virtual keyboard for mobile devices that learns your writing style to provide more accurate autocorrection and text prediction.This new integration adds direct access to Bing chatbots, enabling Select “Conversation Style” (opens in a new tab), exactly like the browser version. However, there’s an exclusive Tone feature that analyzes what you’ve just typed, then rewrites your text to match a specific sound.
Here’s how you can try out Bing on SwiftKey Download the beta app (opens in a new tab) From the Google Play Store. However, you may not be able to use it. Pedram Rezai (opens in a new tab)As CTO of Microsoft’s mobile and commerce division, he said on Twitter that the update is “slowly rolling out” to users. If the update is not on your SwiftKey Beta version, please check back later.
Luckily, we had access to SwiftKey’s Bing functionality, so we decided to give it a try.
set the right tone
After installing the app, you must follow the on-screen prompts to enable SwiftKey. Access to Bing is located above the keyboard, which can do one of three things. In addition to the chatbot, there is a built-in search feature where you can look up search terms through web posts or images.
But the main draw is the aforementioned Tone, which is undeniably hilarious. When you run some text through Tone, it offers four different rewrites based on certain voices: Professional, Casual, Polite, and Social Post. Both Professional and Polite are very similar in that they take emotional text and tone it down. Casual, as the name suggests, gives text messages a more easy-going attitude, and it often starts the message by calling the other person “Dude” 🤦♂️. With Social Post, messages basically become tweets, with hashtags and emojis at the bottom.
Tone does have a small limitation, as the text must be “between 3 and 200 characters” before SwiftKey rewrites anything. Also, it refuses to use swear words, so keep it clean.
At the time of writing, it’s unclear if there will be an iOS version. SwiftKey has had a tumultuous history on iOS, as it was discontinued on Apple devices in October 2022, only for Microsoft resumes support after a month (opens in a new tab). We asked if the company had plans to bring SwiftKey on iOS to Bing AI support. This story will be updated if we hear back.
