Search Engine Land
  • SEO
    • > All SEO
    • > What Is SEO?
    • > SEO Periodic Table
    • > Google: SEO
    • > Bing SEO
    • > Google Algorithm Updates
  • PPC
    • > All PPC
    • > What is PPC?
    • > Google Ads
    • > Microsoft Ads
    • > The Periodic Tables of PPC
  • Focuses
    • > Local
    • > Commerce
    • > Shopify SEO Guide
    • > Content
    • > Email Marketing Periodic Table
    • > Social Media Marketing
    • > Analytics
    • > Search Engine Land Awards
    • > All Focuses
  • SMX
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • About
    • > About Search Engine Land
    • > Newsletter
    • > Third Door Media
    • > Advertise

Processing...Please wait.

Search Engine Land » Microsoft » Microsoft Advertising » Bing exec: Microsoft’s AI is giving it the ‘right to innovate’

Bing exec: Microsoft’s AI is giving it the ‘right to innovate’

But as the company’s machine learning makes it easier for marketers, ethical concerns and human input aren't being ignored.

Henry Powderly on October 24, 2018 at 11:31 am
Bing Keynote

David Pann, general manager of global search business at Microsoft, and Ginny Marvin, Search Engine Land editor-in-chief, speak at SMX East.

NEW YORK — Microsoft’s eight-year process to build an AI backbone for its search platform Bing is positioning the company to innovate for the benefit of marketers, one company executive said Wednesday.

“You can’t leave it up to people because the system is changing so often,” said David Pann, general manager of global search business at Microsoft, during a keynote discussion at the SMX East event in New York City. “So what we did is we built an AI infrastructure that is really powering all the recommendations that we are putting up through our user interface or through our sales team.”

According to Pann, Bing’s AI backbone is taking in all the data from its marketplaces to learn more about things like client objectives, so that it can make automated recommendations for advertisers. But what looks like an all-machine process is actually humanized and refined by Microsoft’s sales team based on their knowledge of clients’ businesses and goals.

“So we may have hundreds of recommendations for a client that an algorithm has said ‘we should be doing one to 100,’ but our sales teams come in and say ‘interesting, but my knowledge of the customer is so good that the first five recommendations don’t make sense.’”

[related-posts section_title=”More insights from SMX” top_post_title=”Check out the SMX West 2019 agenda and sign up now for lowest rates” top_post_url=”https://marketinglandevents.com/smx/west/agenda-at-a-glance/?source=ml&utm_medium=newspost&utm_campaign=smx-west” sel_ids=”306978,307265,307302,307075,307096,307052,307480,307286,306987,307890″ ml_ids=“250837,251959″ post_list_limit=”3″]

Ultimately, Pann said it’s about giving time back to marketers, and Microsoft is investing in new interfaces to do just that. Pann teased about an AI-driven solution called Bing Advisor designed to give insights to marketers. This may be a few years out, but is something that’s been in the works for a year or two.

Do no harm

With machine learning comes a responsibility to ensure the recommendations made by Bing’s engine are credible and ethical. For starters, according to Pann, that means democratizing AI so that it is not just in the hands of large enterprises. It also means factoring in accessibility so users with disabilities can access their intelligence.

But perhaps one of the trickiest and perhaps most essential safeguards is protecting that AI from bias.

“If there is bias in the world and you build it into your AI, then you will have a biased AI that does not understand how the diversity of our world and the diversity of our opinions can really bring the world together,” he said.

Pann pointed to lessons learned from Tay, a Microsoft chatbot launched in 2016 that was taken down after it quickly started posting racist messages.

Pann said Microsoft is already adjusting results in its news services to show different perspectives on news topics.

LinkedIn and the death of the parrot

Pann repeatedly pointed to the depth of the Microsoft graph, which includes data generated from Microsoft’s entire ecosystem, as adding a lot of power to its AI backbone. This week Bing announced that marketers would now be able to target three attributes from LinkedIn — company, job function and industry — in their search campaigns.

While the pilot is beginning with those three data points, LinkedIn captures a host of other attributes they are considering making available.

In the past, Bing Ads has acknowledged being a fast follower to Google Ads’ product updates. There’s been a shift, though. Rather than Bing parroting advancements by its chief rival Google, instead, new capabilities have given them the “right to innovate,” Pann said, pointing to the LinkedIn news as a recent example.

“This whole idea of parroting versus innovating is flip-flopped,” he said.


New on Search Engine Land

    Google search results spam for ‘Bill Slawski obituary’ shows the dark side of SEO

    New mobile Google ad experiment puts favicon in-line with display URL

    Google launches video health tools to help publisher monetization

    SEO pioneer and expert Bill Slawski passes away

    New Yelp feature: Request a Call

About The Author

Henry Powderly
Henry Powderly is vice president of content for Third Door Media, publishers of Search Engine Land and MarTech. With more than a decade in editorial leadership positions, he is responsible for content strategy and event programming for the organization.

Related Topics

AmazonBingLinkedInMicrosoft AdvertisingPPCSMX® - Search Marketing Expo & Conference Series

Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

Learn actionable search marketing tactics that can help you drive more traffic, leads, and revenue.

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes (virtual)

June 14-15, 2022: SMX Advanced (virtual)

November 15-16, 2022: SMX Next (virtual)

Learn More About Our SMX Events

Discover time-saving technologies and actionable tactics that can help you overcome crucial marketing challenges.

Start Discovering Now: Spring (virtual)

September 28-29, 2022: Fall (virtual)

Learn More About Our MarTech Events

Webinars

Take a Crawl, Walk, Run Approach to Multi-Channel ABM

Content Comes First: Transform Your Operations With DAM

Dominate Your Competition with Google Auction Insights and Search Intelligence

See More Webinars

Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Sales Enablement Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Digital Experience Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Call Analytics Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports

White Papers

Reputation Management For Healthcare Organizations

Unlock the App Marketing Potential of QR Codes

Realising the power of virtual events for demand generation

The Progressive Marketer’s Ultimate Events Strategy 2022 Worksheet

CMO Guide: How to Plan Smart and Pivot Fast

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily search news and analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • SEO
  • PPC

Our Events

  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX
  • MarTech

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS
  • Youtube

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.