Microsoft Continues Its Push for AI in Everything at Build 2023

Microsoft kicked off Build 2023, its annual developer conference, today. Since announcing the investment and integration of OpenAI and ChatGPT late last year, Microsoft has continuously introduced OpenAI and ChatGPT integrations with its products, including Office and Edge. Build 2023 continues that push.

Bing + ChatGPT and ChatGPT plugins

ChatGPT will be able to integrate with Bing to provide real-time queries and answers. Answers from ChatGPT will include citations so you know the source of the information. Microsoft is also bringing interoperability between ChatGPT and Bing plugins, so developers can write plugin once, and they work in both systems. With the integration in Edge, users can seamlessly use ChatGPT, Bing and plugins to reduce the amount of effort in day-to-day tasks.

Windows 11 Copilot

In addition to asking search questions, Windows 11 Copilot will help users make better use of Windows. For example, you can ask Copilot about wanting to have some focus time, Copilot may suggest a focus timer, enabling dark mode and rearranging windows, and you can ask Copilot to take all these actions right from the Copilot chat.

Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is analytics for AI. It will provide a unified experience for those working on developing AI applications for the modern world.

Thoughts

ChatGPT has already changed how a lot of people work, whether it’s creating content, writing an email, or searching for information. With Bing, ChatGPT and plugins integrating well together, Microsoft can potentially make Bing a serious threat to Google, who is the current market-leading search engine. The additional benefits of using ChatGPT is that it is always evolving, and it uses a chat interface that is more personal than just typing some text into a text box. Chatbox-based support and search has been a hot topic for a number of years, but ChatGPT can finally make it personal, as it feels like the user is conversing with a person rather than just pre-built text that is robotic.

Windows 11 Copilot is interesting. The use cases demoed is pretty basic. If done well, people may discover new features that they do not know about. This is given that people have the right prompt to trigger the right actions. For most people, they have developed a way of doing things, or a specific setup, or a specific workflow when using Windows, so it will be interesting to see how much this feature gets used. If this feature gets integrated with applications, then there could be a lot of possibilities.

Fabric is a natural product for Microsoft after investing into OpenAI. The sudden rise to fame of ChatGPT has made AI front and centre for the general public, and people are much more aware of the different AI products and services, and the progress that AI has made in the last decade or so. It is not surprising that Microsoft wants to take advantage of the sudden explosion of demand for AI services by enabling developers to easily make AI applications.