Newsroom

Microsoft Build kicked off on May 23, 2023, and has evolved into one of the most significant AI-focused events of the year. The American multinational company has made key announcements on how it's growing its use of AI across different services and apps, including Microsoft 365, Windows 11, and the like. We have rounded up the most significant announcements and news from the event below.

Windows Copilot

According to Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, Windows Copilot will come with Windows 11. As an umbrella name for Microsoft's different ChatGPT-enabled integrations, Copilot will power Microsoft 365, Viva, GitHib, Dynamics, etc. In addition, windows Copilot brings powerful centralized AI assistance to users through the push of a button found in the Windows taskbar. Windows Copilot is expected to arrive in the preview stage in June. You can expect Windows Copilot to empower users to ask multiple questions and perform complicated actions, including rewetting emails, summarizing content, and more. In Nadella's words, Windows Copilot will easily "make every Window user a power user."

Microsoft Fabric

The event saw Microsoft's existing data platforms receive incredible AI capabilities. Nadella declared at Build '23 that now is the time to introduce "data analytics for the era of AI." Microsoft Fabric will recontextualize and revolutionize the company's data analytics tools, including Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Factory, and Power BI as SaaS offerings. Microsoft Fabric can possibly center on the data fabric concept. This concept ushers in a new wave in data analytics that mixes different modern trends, such as the delta store, data lakes, etc., behind a standardized group of APIs. The CEO at the event claimed that Microsoft Fabric is the company's biggest data product launch happening after SQL Server.

Copilot Stack

Many Copilots exist at Microsoft now. But the company is taking a step ahead in building a Copilot stack, which was confirmed at Build. The company doesn't want Copilot to become a one-shot AI offering; instead, it wants Copilot to become a full-scale stack. In this regard, Microsoft CTO—Kevin Scott—chose the event to share about AI product development happening at the company. Scott shared that most of the AI development work revolves around Copilot. In his keynote, Scott explained that the Copilot stack is aimed at being a one-stop solution for developers to create customized extensible plugins. Explaining the Copilot stack, Scott explained that this newly announced product improves an AI system's capabilities. When deployed correctly, this stack enables the system to retrieve real-time data, include other business data, execute high-end computations, and take action on behalf of users.

Plugins

Plugins will become an integral cog in Microsoft's Copilot machinery. Scott called plugins "the actuators of the digital world" during his keynote. The plugins enable Microsoft's Copilot to engage with different services and software seamlessly, empowering developers to build them for a multitude of tasks. An AI system can use a plugin to access private files, enabling the system to answer questions related to business-specific data. This feature will allay the concerns of privacy that arise while using generative AI, which can possibly leak sensitive data. At Build, the company announced it is working closely with OpenAI to embrace an open standard of plugins. The engagement is a step toward strengthening and growing the ecosystem of AI plugins. Moreover, this engagement facilitates the adoption of an open standard for different plugins that will easily integrate with OpenAI's game-changing product, ChatGPT, in the future. The adoption will further solidify Microsoft's Copilot offerings, including Bing Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Windows Copilot, and Dynamics 365 Copilot. At press time, there are over 50 plugins available; in addition to them, Microsoft plans to launch over 1,000 more plugins in the coming months.

Wrapping It Up

Microsoft's goals have become clear at Build 2023. The company's chief aim lies in building and optimizing its growing universe of copilots through plugins. The technology MNC plans on creating these plugins with the help of its extensive partner base and developer network. And thanks to Microsoft Azure AI's extensive processing capabilities and computational power, the company will accelerate its pace of Copilot releases. As a Microsoft Gold partner and digital leader, we will closely watch this space to not miss out on any latest piece of news.