Big reveals from Microsoft Build
Tech giant’s AI assistant is centre stage as CEO outlines its future
THERE was much talk about artificial intelligence as Microsoft launched its 2023 build conference in Seattle last week.
The get-together is usually where Microsoft reveals its current direction for software, giving developers for its platforms a heads-up on what’s next. The event featured some high-profile reveals of AI integrations in Microsoft software.
Here are the most important announcements from the event.
Copilot for Windows 11
The word copilot was employed copiously in the event’s opening keynote as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was joined by a host of other execs and high-flyers to talk through the company’s new tech.
We have already seen this “copilot” concept used in the company’s 365 suite of productivity software – it’s essentially a built-in chatbot that users can call upon to help them with the kinds of tasks that artificial intelligence chatbots are good at – things like summarising long texts, or creating presentations from meeting notes.
The new location to receive the copilot makeover is Windows itself – the latest version of the OS will be updated with a helper chatbot over the coming months.
The Windows 11 Copilot, to give it its official name, will be accessible right from the Windows taskbar, and can be called upon to suggest adjustments to your computer’s settings according to the task you are trying to complete – for example, ask it how to set your computer up for a writing session and it will make suggestions for apps and window layouts, whether you should have light or dark mode, and even suggest a suitable Spotify playlist to work to.
Copilot for 365 will support plugins and also come to the Edge browser
There were more AI offerings for the latest Microsoft Edge browser, which is about to include the Copilot from the 365 suite… and it features support for third-party plug-ins. This is perhaps a bigger deal than the Windows Copilot, as it will offer AI chatbot integration across the web, with plug-ins that can extend its functionality to other services.
The example shown off in the Built keynote focussed on a recipe web page – the user asked the Copilot to extract a list of ingredients from the recipe page, and a plug-in for a shopping service was then asked to add all the ingredients to the shopping cart. An order could then be placed.
None of these things are, of course, things people couldn’t do themselves… but the AI chatbot can do them more quickly.
The beauty of the plug-ins is that they extend the functionality beyond the things AI chatbots have been used for so far, bringing more functionality that might actually be useful to real users.
Bing is the default for ChatGPT
Not surprisingly given the billions of dollars Microsoft has invested in OpenAI, makers of the mosthyped AI chatbot ChatGPT, deeper integration between the two companies was announced at Build.
Indeed, the plugins mentioned above in relation to the Edge Copilot will be interoperable with ChatGPT itself – so the AI chatbot made by OpenAI will have access to any and all plug-ins made for Edge.
Further integration comes with the reveal that Microsoft’s own Bing search engine will be the default engine for ChatGPT itself, which means it will have access to more up to date information from the web when answering queries. It will append information surfaced by Bing to the end of its own AI generated responses.
Easy quit, Bluetooth and avatars
There were a few new announcements about the Windows ecosystem that were not related to AI at the event.
One of which will please any and all Windows users – Microsoft is finally offering an option for users to quit frozen apps from the taskbar with a single click, without the need to open the Task Manager… something every Windows user must have done literally thousands of times. On the audio front, Windows 11 will also now support the Bluetooth LE spec for streaming – this is a lowpower option which retains high quality, so should be useful for squeezing some more power from laptops.
Finally, Microsoft is rolling out support for the use of avatars in its Teams video conferencing software. Using an avatar that looks like you rather than video of you might be useful for those who are reluctant to appear on camera as themselves, but also for those who don’t have webcams.
Microsoft’s Bing search engine will be the default engine for ChatGPT