Microsoft caps Bing Chats at 50 per day and 5 per session

After a flurry of incidents where researchers and journalists were able to get Bing Chat to become “emotional,” spill internal information, or just get confused, Microsoft has made a notable change in the new Bing “based on feedback from you all:”

Starting today, the chat experience will be capped at 50 chat turns per day and 5 chat turns per session.  A turn is a conversation exchange which contains both a user question and a reply from Bing.

Our data has shown that the vast majority of people find the answers they’re looking for within 5 turns and that only ~1% of chat conversations have 50+ messages.  After a chat session hits 5 turns, people will be prompted to start a new topic. At the end of each chat session, context needs to be cleared so the model won’t get confused. Just click on the broom icon to the left of the search box for a fresh start. As we continue to get feedback, we will explore expanding the caps on chat sessions.

While disappointing, it’s probably most surprising that Bing Chat didn’t start out locked down this way as it’s still in its very early stages and prone to maybe not so much abuse but over-curiosity, at least.

While Microsoft may be over-compensating for what are probably a few well publicized glitches in an otherwise promising new technology, it’s good to see the company get an early handle on the issues as it plans to ramp up entry into the program. Bing Chat is still a long way from being ready for the world, as promising as it is, and these kinds of adjustments are not only necessary but expected.

Are you in the “Copilot for the web” Bing Chat preview? Let us know in the comments below.