Microsoft Introduces AI-Powered Features to Windows and Office
The release of Microsoft Corp.’s AI assistant for Windows is scheduled to begin on September 26, while the Office AI app will be made widely accessible on November 1. This move reflects the software giant’s ongoing efforts to incorporate generative artificial intelligence into its products.
Microsoft’s Copilot-branded AI assistants provide a unified experience across operating systems, applications and devices, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Thursday at an event in New York. For example, Microsoft showed how a user can ask Copilot to find a flight reservation in text messages.
“What we’ve seen is that the most magical and empowering moments people have had with AI are when it learns about a context that extends far beyond what’s in front of them,” Nadella said. “This requires that what we think of today as separate categories—search, productivity, operating system devices—all come together and evolve.”
For the past year, the Redmond, Washington-based software maker has been revamping its biggest products around artificial intelligence technology that can generate new content from huge data sets. This list now includes Windows, Office, Bing search, security software, and consumer and financial products. The work makes heavy use of OpenAI’s GPT-4 technology, in which Microsoft has invested 13 billion dollars.
Microsoft’s rivals, such as Alphabet Inc. and Salesforce Inc., are developing their own products to help customers use the latest artificial intelligence technology to speed up and automate some tasks.
Introduced in March, the Office product has been tested with about 600 customers and costs $30 per user per month on top of what most business customers already pay. The product allows employees to use data from the web as well as internal company data to, for example, analyze spreadsheets, create slide shows, and predict future business problems.
Microsoft announced the Windows product in May, saying it would be accessible from a button on the computer screen’s taskbar that opens a side panel that customers can use as an assistant. The tool allows you to copy and paste text and rewrite, summarize and explain content, e.g. Windows users can also ask Copilot questions in a similar way to Bing AI chat.
The company also showed how a user could copy an email with information about nearby tasks, and Copilot seamlessly provided locations for each. The software can automatically display the distance in time instead of miles if the user says they want to walk. Microsoft also said it is testing Office AI tools with consumers and small businesses.
