Particularly because we all use mobile devices more and more, Bing succeeding isn't just about more people running searches and seeing ads, Miller points out. After all, relying on adverts and effectively selling user information to the advertisers brings up a lot of questions about privacy. Miller briefly notes: "We know more about you than you can imagine."
And Microsoft doesn't have to concentrate on that for Bing to be successful because, as he points out: "Cortana is built in Bing, and the Knowledge Graph that Cortana is based on continues to grow." Cortana is less about finding things than about getting things done. "Cortana has the desire to be your personal assistant; helping you schedule meetings and connect with friends," enthuses Miller. "Really, the scope is unbounded."
Conversation as a platform
He notes that messaging is gaining new popularity on mobile devices and desktops alike, whether it's Slack or Snapchat. "Think about conversation as a platform – there are things we want to work on to make sure that's a platform we can contribute to. Imagine a conversation where you're talking to a friend and she knows what you like, where you go, where you live. I type in a restaurant name and Cortana can say 'I know that place; here's its menu, here are its hours – do you want to call them?' There's a lot more we could do there. What about parking?"
You can see some of that in Cortana, and also in the Bing app on iOS. "It pivots search so that instead of showing you a URL, it shows you an entity. We understand this is a restaurant, so you might want to book a table. And it's personalised because it's on your device – we know what apps you have that can take care of an action like booking the table or mapping the route.
"If you search for movies or trailers, we know where you can watch it; we can tell you it's on Netflix or you can rent it on your Amazon account. We have all those actions tied in to search."
That's a direction Miller says is particularly interesting for Bing. "It's a fascinating piece of our new generation in mobile experiences, and that's where we need to be stronger."
