Let's talk about the practical side of this chatbot that's launched a thousand think

pieces.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty-Karino.

Artificial intelligence-powered chatbots have certainly made a splash in recent months.

They can take log exams. They can write English essays. They can engage in weird, existential,

often disconcerting conversations with users.

But can they actually tell you something useful when you use them to search the web?

That's kind of a key question to ask while tech titans roll this technology into the tools we use every day.

So we asked Joanna Stern, she's a technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal,

who's been playing around with the new AI-enabled tools for Microsoft.

The revamped Bing, along with the web browser Edge, are now available in preview form to a small group of users.

And she gave me a little demonstration of how it all works.

I've got it up on my computer, so I'm ready to be the intermediary between you and the AI.

Wonderful. So I'm currently recording in my little pantry studio where I have a lot of cans of San Marzano tomatoes,

crushed tomatoes that I bought, you know, by the caseload, during lockdown.

So my question is, what should I cook with this large amount of canned crushed San Marzano tomatoes with no red meat?

And that includes some green vegetables.

All right, I've typed it in. I have what should I cook with a case of San Marzano crushed tomatoes?

I have leftover from lockdown, question mark, no red meat, and including green vegetables. You ready?

Okay.

So it takes a little bit of time, so it's doing that search.

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