Microsoft unveiled Bing on May 28, 2009, when CEO Steve Ballmer presented it at the All Things Digital (D7) conference. It went fully live worldwide on June 3, 2009, replacing Live Search. Microsoft's search engine itself goes back to MSN Search in 1998.
Bing timeline at a glance
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1998 | MSN Search launches, using results from Inktomi and other providers. |
| 2005 | MSN Search switches to Microsoft's own crawler and index. |
| Sept 2006 | Renamed Windows Live Search after a beta that began in March. |
| March 2007 | Renamed Live Search and separated from other Windows Live services. |
| 2008 | Microsoft buys Farecast (travel price prediction) and Powerset (natural-language search), whose technology goes into Bing. |
| May 28, 2009 | Steve Ballmer unveils Bing, code-named “Kumo”, pitched as a “decision engine”. |
| June 3, 2009 | Bing goes live worldwide, with a new photo on the homepage every day. |
| July 29, 2009 | Microsoft and Yahoo announce a 10-year deal: Bing will power Yahoo search. |
| 2010 | Bing starts serving Yahoo's results in the US and Canada; Bing Rewards launches. |
| 2013 | New Bing logo and design. |
| 2015 | Microsoft and Yahoo rework their deal, making it non-exclusive. |
| 2016 | Bing Rewards becomes Microsoft Rewards. |
| Oct 2020 | Bing is renamed Microsoft Bing, with a new logo. |
| Feb 7, 2023 | The “new Bing” launches with an AI chat built on OpenAI's GPT-4. |
| March 2023 | Bing Image Creator launches; Microsoft reports 100 million daily active users of Bing. |
| Nov 15, 2023 | Bing Chat is renamed Microsoft Copilot. |
| 2025 | Copilot Search arrives in Bing; the Bing Search APIs for developers are retired in August. |
Before Bing: MSN Search and Live Search
Microsoft entered search in 1998 with MSN Search, a portal feature that relied on other companies' results. In 2005 it started using its own index, and in 2006–2007 it rebranded twice, first as Windows Live Search, then as Live Search. None of these gained much ground on Google, which is why Microsoft decided on a completely new name.
The 2009 launch
Bing was developed under the code name Kumo. Microsoft chose the new name partly because it was short, easy to say in many languages, and suggested the moment of finding something. At launch it stood out for its daily homepage photograph, video previews that played on hover, and features for travel and shopping.
The Yahoo partnership
Weeks after launch, Microsoft signed a 10-year agreement with Yahoo. Bing took over Yahoo's search results from 2010, while Yahoo sold premium search ads. The deal was renegotiated in 2015 and Bing still supplies results to Yahoo today. More on that in did Microsoft buy Bing?.
Bing in the AI era
In February 2023 Microsoft relaunched Bing with an AI chat assistant, the first mainstream search engine to do so. Bing Chat was renamed Copilot later that year and now lives at copilot.microsoft.com; Bing itself added AI-generated summaries and Copilot Search. Your old chats are covered in Bing Chat history.
Microsoft's search engine names over time
| Name | Years | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| MSN Search | 1998–2006 | Part of the MSN portal; results bought from other providers until Microsoft built its own index in 2005. |
| Windows Live Search | 2006–2007 | A redesigned interface and image search, under the Windows Live brand. |
| Live Search | 2007–2009 | Search split off from other Live services; Farecast and Powerset technology arrived. |
| Bing | 2009–2020 | New brand, daily homepage photo, video previews, the Yahoo partnership and Bing Rewards. |
| Microsoft Bing | 2020–today | Rebrand under the Microsoft name, then AI chat (2023), Copilot and AI-generated answers. |
Features Bing was known for at launch
- The homepage image. A different photograph every day, with hotspots to learn about it. It's still Bing's signature: see where today's Bing picture is from.
- Video previews on hover. Results played a short clip when you pointed at them.
- An “Explore” pane on the left with related searches and your recent searches, so you could retrace your steps. Today that history lives on its own page: check your Bing history.
- Travel price prediction from Farecast, telling you whether to buy a flight now or wait.
- Instant answers for things like weather, flight status and sports scores directly on the results page.
Bing's market share today
Bing is the world's second-largest search engine. In August 2026 it handled about 4.5% of searches worldwide across all devices, against roughly 91% for Google, according to StatCounter. Its share is noticeably higher on desktop computers, where it's the default in Windows and Microsoft Edge, and it reaches more people than that figure suggests because it also supplies results to Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and other services.
How old is Bing?
Bing turned 17 in 2026. Counting from MSN Search, Microsoft has run a search engine for 28 years.
Frequently asked questions
Who announced Bing?
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO at the time, on May 28, 2009. See who created Bing.
What was Bing called before?
Live Search (2007–2009), Windows Live Search (2006–2007) and, originally, MSN Search (from 1998).
Is Bing older than Google?
No. Google launched in 1998 and Bing in 2009, although Microsoft's MSN Search also dates from 1998.