Microsoft Advertising has been working with AI for years, integrating it into Bing and other products, but it wasn’t until CEO Satya Nadella got a glimpse into what OpenAI’s technology could do that it really took off inside Microsoft.

In June, while talking with Wired, Nadella said the “eureka moment” that led to going all in was the “ability to code, which led to our creating Copilot. But the first time I saw what is now called GPT-4, in the summer of 2022, was a mind-blowing experience.”

Microsoft had its own large language models to train AI, called Turing, inside of Bing and also offered it in Azure, but he felt ChatGPT-4 creator OpenAI was going after the same thing. Instead of trying to train five different foundational models, Nadella wanted one and made it the basis for Microsoft’s platforms. That began the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI, which took the form of a multibillion dollar investment. 

“As Microsoft Advertising has made a commitment to innovating with the vision to reimagine advertising with generative artificial intelligence (GAI), an exciting development in this space is transpiring with responsive search ads (RSAs),” Kevin Salat, product marketing manager at Microsoft Advertising, wrote in a post.

This week Microsoft’s advertising division announced the integration of GAI into RSAs for creating and editing, as well as recommending AI-generated headlines and descriptions. The feature is rolling out to advertisers now.

Recommendations are provided based on the final URL that Salat defines as “categorized, higher quality, and more diversified.”

Marketers can choose from headline recommendations in one click from the platform’s automated workflow.

Microsoft’s GAI tool for ad headlines and descriptions is available in 35 languages. The technology automatically detects the language based on the website. Marketers, under the “Create an Ad” tab, can click to enter the final URL, and beneath the “Final URL” section, another section titled Headlines will allow marketers to view multiple headline recommendations based on the final URL.

The auto-generated assets feature was designed to reduce the need to create separate campaigns or ad groups for different devices and audiences. This tool is gradually being rolled out now.

The functions, among the most popular in Excel — allowing users to make logical comparisons between a value and what’s expected — will roll out later this month to help marketers edit ad copy based on two device and audience targets. This function is expected to reduce the need for separate campaigns or ad groups for different devices and different audiences.

Microsoft said it also will deprecate some legacy and low use features that are outdated and no longer compatible with its system in Keyword Planner: GetKeywordCategories Service Operation, GetKeywordDemographics Service Operation, GetKeywordLocations Service Operation, GetKeywordIdeaCategories Service, as well as the Product Category feature in Keyword Planner.

The deprecation date is Aug. 21.

Microsoft Advertising has been working with AI for years, integrating it into Bing and other products, but it wasn’t until Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella got a glimpse into what OpenAI’s tech could do that it took off inside Microsoft.