All eyes are on Microsoft as the software giant prepares to take center stage at its annual Build conference next month. According to the recently released session agenda, artificial intelligence will be the star of the show, with the company unveiling a suite of AI tools for Windows PCs and Azure cloud services.
Leading the AI charge at Build will be Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s newly-minted VP of AI who joined last month after co-founding DeepMind, the pioneering AI research company acquired by Google in 2014. Suleyman will share the keynote stage with Nadella and other longtime Microsoft executives to outline the company’s AI vision.
For Windows users, one of the marquee announcements will be AI-powered enhancements to the open-source PowerToys suite, including an “Advanced Paste” feature that leverages on-device AI models for intelligent text reformatting. Microsoft will also tease AI capabilities that allow “deeper interaction with your digital life” within Windows apps themselves.
On the cloud side, Azure developers can expect updates to Microsoft’s AI safety tools to help mitigate risks like explicit content generation. The company also will spotlight upcoming improvements to its Copilot AI assistant for Azure.
Perhaps the biggest Azure AI news will be Microsoft’s support for running AI inferencing on Arm-based neural processing units (NPUs). This would allow energy-efficient AI processing on Windows on Arm PCs and Azure cloud instances – crucial for scaling AI cost-effectively.
This AI blitz shouldn’t come as a surprise to industry watchers. Back in January, CEO Satya Nadella boldly declared that 2024 would be the year AI becomes a “first-class” feature across Microsoft’s product lineup. And the Redmond-based company has been backing up that claim with a steady stream of AI-powered innovations, from its booming Azure AI services to the recently launched Surface PCs with dedicated “Copilot” buttons for quick voice assistant access.