Alternatives to Bing Web Search in Azure OpenAI Service

Question

Currently using Azure OpenAI service integrated with Bing Web Search for internet search functionality. With Bing Web Search facing shutdown, what alternative methods or services can be utilized to perform internet searches effectively?

Is it possible to use Grounding with Bing Search?

Also, does the Azure OpenAI service support any features in OpenAI related to web search or that are equivalent?

Answer 1

Hi @Bayu Damar Jati

If you are currently using the Azure OpenAI Service integrated with Bing Web Search for internet search functionality, it is important to be aware that the Bing Web Search API is scheduled for shutdown. To ensure continued access to real-time public web data within your Azure OpenAI-powered solutions, Microsoft now recommends using "Grounding with Bing Search" as the primary alternative. This feature, available through Azure AI Agents, enables your AI agents to incorporate up-to-date web information when generating responses to user queries. To implement this, you must create a Grounding with Bing Search resource in your Azure portal and connect it to your Azure AI Agent. When a user sends a query, the agent determines if it should leverage Bing Search to retrieve relevant information, which is then used to generate a comprehensive and current response for the user. Refer the link https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/agents/how-to/tools/bing-grounding

It is also possible to use "Grounding with Bing Custom Search," which allows you to restrict searches to a configurable set of public web domains. This is particularly useful if you want to limit the scope of web data your AI agent accesses, ensuring that only information from trusted or relevant domains is used. After setting up the custom configuration in the Azure AI Foundry portal, your agent will utilize Bing to search over the specified domains and return relevant content chunks, which are then synthesized into the agent's response

When using either grounding method, the returned results are not raw search listings but are instead processed and summarized by the AI model. The model's response includes citations and links to the source websites as well as the Bing search query used, which must be displayed to the end user per Microsoft’s use and display requirements. It is important to note that using Grounding with Bing Search or Bing Custom Search may incur additional costs, and your customer data will be processed outside the Azure compliance boundary, subject to Bing's terms of use. You should assess whether this meets your organization's compliance and data handling requirements.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

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