Bing Search APIs
Microsoft web search API widely used to ground AI apps, retired Aug 2025
Is Bing Search APIs dead?
Yes. Bing Search APIs has shut down and is no longer available.
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The Bing Search APIs let developers fetch web, news and image search results from Bing. Many AI chatbots and agents used them to look up fresh information before answering. It suited students, researchers, journalists and anyone who needs to find and check information. Microsoft retired the public Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs on August 11, 2025. Existing instances were decommissioned and new sign-ups closed. Microsoft suggests Grounding with Bing Search inside Azure AI Agents, but it is not a drop-in replacement, so many developers moved to third-party search APIs. If you need something similar today, popular options include Grounding with Bing (Azure AI Agents), Exa, Brave Search API. Lesson for users: always keep your own copies of important data when you rely on any AI service, because products can change owners or close with little notice.
What happened
Microsoft retired the public Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs on August 11, 2025. Existing instances were decommissioned and new sign-ups closed. Microsoft suggests Grounding with Bing Search inside Azure AI Agents, but it is not a drop-in replacement, so many developers moved to third-party search APIs.
Active alternatives
Elicit
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Consensus
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NotebookLM
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Perplexity
ResearchAI answer engine that searches the web and cites its sources
Frequently asked questions
Is Bing Search APIs shut down?
Microsoft retired the public Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs on August 11, 2025. Existing instances were decommissioned and new sign-ups closed.
What should Bing Search APIs users do now?
Microsoft suggests Grounding with Bing Search inside Azure AI Agents, but it is not a drop-in replacement, so many developers moved to third-party search APIs.
What are the best Bing Search APIs alternatives?
Popular alternatives include Grounding with Bing (Azure AI Agents), Exa, Brave Search API.
Sources
- Official Microsoft Lifecycle announcement: Bing Search APIs retiring August 11, 2025.
- Official website: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/announcements/bing-search-api-retirement
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