Microsoft is so desperate for people to drop Google for Bing it’s offering a $1 million reward

As if Microsoft’s Rewards loyalty program couldn’t get any better; it’s offering a chance to win $1,000,000 (USD) if you make a transition from your current search engine to Bing – starting October 8.

It may sound too good to be true but as Windows Central reports, anyone in the United States, United Kingdom, Puerto Rico, Canada, France, and Germany has the chance of becoming a millionaire, just by browsing on Bing and entering the sweepstake for free.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has done this, with the possibility of earning points just by searching using Bing previously – but now the stakes are much higher, and it hardly requires any effort. You’ll instantly gain five entries when sharing your link with friends once they enter, increasing your chances of winning.

If you aren’t lucky enough to net the jackpot (there can only be one winner), ten more winners will receive $10,000, which isn’t too shabby!

Is this a sign of bigger rewards in the future?

While we’ve seen a plethora of gifts available to win via Microsoft Rewards before, none of them have been at this magnitude – it’s essentially a free lottery ticket, that only needs you to use your internet browser as normal. Of course, the catch is using Bing over Google (which is still behind Google in terms of usage) and waiting to see if you’re lucky enough.

This is a clear attempt by Microsoft to convince users to switch over to Bing, even if it’s only for the time being. Despite the big push for Bing to dethrone Google (especially with ads on Windows 11), the chances of this making a significant impact on the popular search engine are minimal – especially considering Google’s search functionality in comparison to Bing’s.

Will this work in the long run? Probably not, but it’s certainly a great opportunity to showcase the benefits of the search engine such as AI searching capabilities (uses Open AI GPT-4 which has conversational capabilities), that could potentially retain users.

If the jump from rewards like Xbox Game Pass subscriptions to a $1 million prize is any indication, then we could be seeing Microsoft Rewards become far more generous in the near future than before. Sure, this might be a sign of desperation from Microsoft, but we’re not complaining.