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Microsoft has unveiled an improved artificial intelligence-based assistant that may work without direct commands while supporting the work of entire corporate departments, because the tech giant intensifies its rivalry with Google in developing AI products for businesses.
The world's most respected listed company said its “copilot” feature can now serve entire teams inside a company, not only individuals. For example, it could create and assign tasks to specific people and manage the agenda for a gaggle meeting.
The Seattle-based group said business customers could also create custom “agents” that may be configured to work without having to attend for human instructions. The company said the digital assistant can reply to an incoming email by robotically suggesting or sending replies or immediately processing a customer order.
The expanded features are a part of a series of product updates unveiled at Microsoft's annual developer conference, which begins Tuesday. In doing so, Copilot becomes the flagship product that the corporate hopes will generate future profits.
Copilot represented “a game-changer” by “taking the drudgery out of labor,” said Rajesh Jha, executive vp of experiences and devices at Microsoft.
Microsoft took an early leadership role in developing products within the generative AI space due to its $13 billion investment in OpenAI, while also competing with corporations like Google and Amazon to launch competing services.
Tuesday's updates come days after Google unveiled a series of “multimodal” AI features, with digital agents that may answer questions via video, audio and text. It follows similar launches and upgrades from corporations including Meta and OpenAI.
The announcements are a part of a push by tech corporations including Google, Apple and OpenAI to develop AI-powered intelligent assistants that may take initiative in completing tasks for humans.
Hardware corporations also hope that customers drawn to latest AI features might be pushed to exchange their old devices. Apple this month launched a brand new range of iPads equipped with the subsequent generation of M4 chips.
On Monday, Microsoft unveiled a brand new line of PCs and tablets with artificial intelligence designed to compete with Apple. Certain devices from corporations like Dell, HP and Samsung are said to be equipped with Copilot features that would, for instance, be asked to “remember” a user’s previous actions.
As a part of Tuesday's announcements, Microsoft said customers using its AI services can now use OpenAI's latest model, GPT-4o, in addition to its family of small language models called Phi-3, which incorporates a brand new multimodal model, Phi -, heard. 3-Vision.
The company also said a brand new method to connect Copilot for Microsoft 365 to a big selection of information sources and applications – reminiscent of legal records and customer files – would enable the intelligent assistant to “think logically” across a wider range of inputs.
Asked how the more autonomous Copilot agents may very well be controlled, Charles Lamanna, corporate vp of business applications and platforms at Microsoft, said users could require a human to approve the AI's suggested actions. For example, users could review an AI-generated email before sending it. Users could also review in real time the steps an agent goes through to succeed in a result.
“We don’t say autopilot; “We say co-pilot for a reason,” Jha said. “We don’t consider that the co-pilot may be independent of human intervention.”
The updated Copilot tools might be available to business customers in preview later this yr.
Investors are anticipating evidence that the hugely expensive technology will produce healthy returns, and although Microsoft has said its latest AI tools have helped boost revenue, the corporate hasn't disclosed Copilot user numbers.
Copilot is “central to (Microsoft's) AI narrative,” but “the broader adoption curve stays flatter than many (including us) originally expected 1 / 4 or two ago, especially amongst office staff,” Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in April.
