Although Microsoft still describes the sign-up process for the new Bing preview as a waitlist, access is immediate for nearly all who join. The INFER team interprets this to mean that the waitlist has effectively been removed, as shown by Microsoft’s decision on 19 March 2023 to change the primary call to action on bing.com/new from “Join the Waitlist” to “Sign in to chat”. While some accounts reported not receiving access to the new Bing, Microsoft has made efforts to ensure access where possible, and these reports typically appear to be caused by issues such as not having an age on their account, being banned from Microsoft rewards, or other technical bugs (e.g., a Bing VP, a software engineer on Bing's waitlist team, and a Microsoft Community agent). In addition, these reports appear to be in the strong minority and have decreased significantly in number.

The INFER team has been monitoring this situation, and while we acknowledge that there hasn't been official confirmation from Microsoft and the situation isn't clear cut, it is our judgment that the above constitutes the new Bing "being available to the public”, despite still being in preview. Forecasts made on or after 19 March 2023 will not impact your score.