Microsoft Rewards now works with Google, Apple accounts as Bing drops Microsoft account requirement

First spotted by Windows Latest, Microsoft just confirmed that Bing sign-in now works with Google and Apple accounts. No new Microsoft account required. The company says this should make it easier to sign in and get to “personalized experiences,” specifically calling out Microsoft Rewards, and they shared a direct link to try the new flow.

Ten years of pushing everyone toward a Microsoft account, and Bing just quietly opened its front door to Google and Apple instead. Bing was never supposed to work this way. We reported a few weeks ago that Microsoft is giving the ability to sign in to Edge using a Google account.

The tech giant is essentially admitting the fact that most people don’t want to use a Microsoft account, and giving options to users is never a bad thing.

No need for a Microsoft account to use Bing search

Less than a month ago, when I tested signing into Edge with a Google account, I noticed how Microsoft Rewards got activated even without logging in with a Microsoft Account. I thought it was a bug, but now I realize it was a feature.

To try the new Bing yourself, head to Bing.com, hit sign in, and below the usual email-or-phone field sit two new buttons, Continue with Google and Continue with Apple.

Since the death of Windows Phone, Microsoft has no way to get people to default to Bing for web searches on mobile, and considering that’s the form factor where the most search takes place, giving Android and iPhone users the ability to use their existing Google or Apple accounts to log in to a different Search engine from the one their manufacturer recommends seems like a genius move from Microsoft.

Hands-on with the new Bing sign-in options

Clicking Google would take you to the familiar Google account picker page, but for some weird reason, it shows Sign in to continue using Microsoft Copilot. Same with Apple. If Microsoft’s goal is to get people to actually sign into Bing, then I’d recommend changing Copilot to Bing.

Fortunately, even after signing in, it’s Bing that treats us and not Copilot. Either way, a Microsoft account doesn’t get created in the background, unlike before, where if you entered a gmail.com address, it quietly turned into an MSA.

What happens to Bing now?

My take here is that Bing has essentially become a separate product that is by all means Microsoft, but also not tying you to Microsoft in the traditional sense. When you try to sign in to any website or a SaaS product, you’ll be asked to sign in with a Google, Microsoft, or Apple account. Bing has become such a product.

Imagine Google making YouTube sign-in possible with a Microsoft account, or Apple allowing Apple Maps to be logged in with a Microsoft Account. These companies cannot fathom associating their flagship services with their competitor’s email. Microsoft just did, and I would call this a landmark move from the company. If anything, this would help Bing become a more popular Search engine, and I sure hope it does because Google has been misusing its monopoly for quite a long time.

Microsoft Rewards drops its Microsoft account requirement too

All points you make in Microsoft Rewards, and every gift card redemption, have run through a Microsoft account. It’s only expected, and Microsoft has been throwing absurd money at it lately, a $1,000,000 cash sweepstakes and Mercedes-Benz cars included, all to get more people to sign up for an MSA and start searching on Bing.

The whole customer acquisition machine depended on people being willing to create a Microsoft account before they could enter the draw.

For anyone already living inside Google’s ecosystem through Android or Gmail, that step was probably the real dealbreaker. Now it’s gone. Sign into Rewards with the same Google account already on your phone, and you’re earning points without MSA bothering you.

Funnily enough, I’d bet this single change moves more people into Rewards than the million-dollar sweepstakes ever did.

Bing features can be used without a Microsoft account

In case you didn’t know it already, Bing has a ton of features apart from being a Search engine. Bing Video Creator, Image Creator, Translator, AI Tools, Video Search, Bing News, Bing Maps, Bing Wallpaper, Bing Travel, Shopping, and a lot more are now possible without a Microsoft Account, and I wonder how Microsoft plans to make a profit out of these.

Microsoft opening the door for Google is the strange part

Microsoft spent years engineering Bing to trap people inside its ecosystem, sometimes in ways that bordered on deceptive.

We reported in May that Bing was still spoofing Google’s homepage, a year and a half after the backlash started, showing a fake minimalist Google-style search box that runs a Bing search the moment you type into it. It’s a company baiting Google users.

And yet weeks later, Bing hands those Google users an official sign-in button. Windows 11 Search just picked up a toggle to kill Bing web results entirely, and in my testing it was noticeably faster once Bing stops interfering with local results.

Even Microsoft Edge’s own account got compliments from Mac users, and they’ll have all the more reason to use both Edge and Bing.

Of course, Microsoft being a profit-hungry machine, don’t expect any of this to be charity. Bing just crossed a billion monthly users, and Microsoft has clearly figured out that number climbs faster once the sign-in wall comes down than it did through seven-figure sweepstakes.

Every extra signed-in Bing user, Google account or not, is still someone Microsoft can nudge toward Copilot later.

For now, the practical bit is that if a Microsoft account was the only thing keeping you off Bing, Microsoft Rewards, or its Copilot-powered creative tools, that excuse just disappeared.

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