Microsoft extends rare handshake to Google with upcoming Edge feature

Microsoft has almost always been at odds with Google in the browser space. While both Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome are based on the Chromium project, the two still compete in the same space. In fact, many have been a bit peeved by Microsoft's tactics to get customers to ditch Chrome and Google Search and switch to Microsoft Edge and Bing. In the past, the Redmond tech firm has injected full-page ads for Edge in Chrome and also offered sweepstakes prizes worth millions of dollars for people who do make the switch.

Now, in a rare moment, Microsoft is seemingly extending a friendly handshake to Google through an upcoming feature in its Edge browser. Previously, if enterprise customers using Edge with a work profile searched the internet through Bing, and there were relevant organizational results too, Edge would show a banner with a link redirecting you to check out those grounded results.

Now, Microsoft is working on an implementation that extends this same functionality to users with a work profile leveraging Google for search queries too. The end-goal, of course, is that this will result in a more seamless experience for organizational users and increase productivity, but it's interesting to see that it also removes a differentiating factor between Bing and Google in Edge work profiles.

This "work search banner" is currently in development, with rollout scheduled to begin in June 2026, according to the public Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 560823, accessible here. That said, do keep in mind that just because something is being tracked on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap does not guarantee that it will arrive in the scheduled month, or even become public. However, if it does roll out generally at some point, IT admins will have control over the availability of this feature through the EdgeWorkSearchBannerEnabled policy.