Microsoft AI: Innovation Driver for Modern Business Solutions

Microsoft’s Role in the AI Development and Adoption across Businesses

Microsoft significantly contributes to Artificial Intelligence boost by research and development of AI services and products for businesses and consumers. It is one of the leading companies developing artificial intelligence (AI) over the past decades.

Here are some key points of the evolution of Microsoft AI products:

• Microsoft Research: Founded in 1991, dedicated to cutting-edge AI research. They work on various topics, including machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, robotics, and even AI-related philosophical and ethical issues. Microsoft Research has driven many innovations in Artificial Intelligence and created products, including Bing, Xbox, and Windows.
• Cognitive Services and Bot Framework: In 2016, Microsoft announced Cognitive Services, a series of machine learning and AI tools for developers. At the same time, Bot Framework was introduced, which allows developers to create their chatbots.
• Project Oxford: This project was the base for Cognitive Services. It included a range of face, text, and emotion recognition tools built into Microsoft products and targeted developers.
• Microsoft Azure and AI Platform: Microsoft is actively promoting its cloud computing platform, Azure, as the primary place to build and deploy AI solutions. They offer various tools and services, including Machine Learning Studio, Azure Databricks, and Azure Cognitive Services. Azure Bot Service provides an opportunity for an integrated development environment for bot building. Its integration with Power Virtual Agents, a fully hosted low-code platform, enables developers to build conversational AI bots.
• Microsoft AI and Research Group: In 2016, Microsoft merged its AI and Research teams to accelerate AI innovation. This provided a stronger link between mainstream research and artificial intelligence. In 2019 Microsoft invested in OpenAI, the leading artificial intelligence organization, and became its exclusive cloud computing partner. This includes using the latest AI models, such as GPT-3 and GPT-4.

The new wave of AI innovations from Microsoft

2023 became a year of bringing the power of next-generation AI to work; how we can briefly describe Microsoft’s endeavors in AI development.

Earlier this year, Microsoft launched an all-new, AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser to deliver:

• Better search experience: providing more relevant results for queries like sports scores, stock prices, and weather, and a brand-new sidebar showing more comprehensive answers if needed.
• Complete answers: Search engine reviews results from across the web to summarize and provide the correct answer.
• A new chat experience: The new Bing offers interactive chat for more complex queries. The new chat experience allows you to refine your search until you get the answer that satisfies you the most by asking for more details, clarifications, and ideas – with links available to act on your decisions immediately.
• A creative spark: the new Bing can help you generate content – write an email, create a quiz, prepare for a job interview, etc. And you also get all the sources that were taken for reference.
• New Microsoft Edge experience: the Edge browser was updated with new AI features: Chat and compose. Now, using the Edge Sidebar, you can ask for a summary of the key takeaways of the important documents – and then utilize the chat functionality to create a post, update the design of documents, etc. Edge can understand the website page you’re on and adapts accordingly.

It is also worth mentioning such a unique product launched this year, Microsoft 365 Copilot. It was created to compound the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn the words into the most powerful productivity tool.

Copilot is integrated into Microsoft 365 and helps save time by automating routine tasks, streamlining business workflows, providing valuable insights, and making the right decisions. It combines your internal documents, presentations, chats, and email data and uses it to help you draft emails, create proposals, summarize meetings, and more.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence is becoming a key to automating business processes and cost optimization. That’s why year to year, Microsoft is rolling out new AI-based products, and relaunching the new ones, creating a brighter future of work for everyone.