You only need two simple letters to accurately represent the major technological shift this year:A and I. Beyond these letters, however, there is a complex, evolving, and exciting way in which we work, communicate, and collaborate. As you'll see, artificial intelligence is a common thread as we get started with Microsoft Build.our annual flagship event for developers.
It's already been a landmark year for the industry, beginning in January with the announcement of an extension of our partnership with OpenAI to accelerate AI breakthroughs and ensure these benefits are shared around the world. And in February, Microsoft announced an all-new AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser to transform the world's largest software category -- search.
Since then, development has accelerated rapidly and several important milestones have been reached, including:
- Greater availability ofAzure OpenAI Servicewith added support for ChatGPT and OpenAI's groundbreaking GPT-4 model.
- Co-pilotfor a wide range of users including Dynamics 365 Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot for Power Platform.
- Extension of a new AI-powered Bingfor Windows 11 taskbar, mobile devices and Skype; Bing Image Creator for chatting; and a full open preview of the platform, no waiting list required.
This is just the beginning of the new era of AI. For this reasonMicrosoft Buildis so important. During this event, we'll show how AI is redefining what and how developers build, and how AI is changing the future of work.
Before we get to the news, let's talk about two concepts that we'll be discussing in detail during Microsoft Build:Co-pilotAndPlugins.
A copilot is a program that uses modern artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 to help humans with complex tasks. Microsoft first introduced the concept of a copilot nearly two years ago with GitHub Copilot, an AI pair programmer that helps developers write code, and we continue to release copilots in many of the company's core businesses.
We believe that the Copilot represents both a new paradigm in AI-powered software and a profound shift in the way software is built - from imagining new product scenarios to the user experience, architecture, services used and the way it is thought about. safety and security.
Plugins are tools, first introduced in ChatGPT and more recently Bing, that extend the capabilities of AI systems to interact with application programming interfaces (APIs) of other software and services to retrieve real-time information, integrate business and other business data, and perform new types of calculations and securely act on behalf of the user. Think of plugins as the connection between copilots and the rest of the digital world.
Now let's focus on the news and announcements that we will release during the Microsoft Build.
Expanding the AI plugin ecosystem
Microsoft isannouncesthat we will adopt the same open plugin standard that OpenAI pioneered for ChatGPT to enable interoperability between ChatGPT and the breadth of Microsoft's Copilot offerings.
Developers can now useInPlatform for building plugins that work across both consumer and enterprise interfaces including ChatGPT, Bing, Dynamics 365 Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
And if you want to develop and use your own plugins with your AI application based on Azure OpenAI Service, it is compatible with the same plugin standard by default. This means developers can create experiences that allow people to interact with their apps through the most natural user interface: human language.
As part of this common plugin platformBing adds its support for plugins. In addition to the already announced plugins for OpenTable and Wolfram Alpha, we will also have Expedia, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, Redfin, and Zillow in the Bing ecosystem, among many others.
In addition to the common plugin platform, Microsoft announces that Bing is coming to ChatGPT as the default search experience. ChatGPT will now have a built-in world-class search engine to provide more up-to-date answers from around the web. Now, replies are based on search and web data and include quotes so users can learn more right in the chat. The new experience will be rolling out to ChatGPT Plus subscribers starting today and will soon be available to free users by simply activating a plugin.
Developers can now extend Microsoft 365 Copilot with plugins
We alsoannouncesDevelopers can now integrate their apps and services with Microsoft 365 Copilot using plugins.
Plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot include ChatGPT and Bing plugins, as well as Teams messaging extensions and Power Platform connectors - allowing developers to leverage their existing investments. And developers can easily create new plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot with the Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio. Developers can also extend Microsoft 365 Copilot by bringing their data into Microsoft Graph and contextualizing relevant and actionable information with recently announced informationCopilot semantic index.
More than 50 plugins from partners including Atlassian, Adobe, ServiceNow, Thomson Reuters, Moveworks and Mural are available to customers as part of the Early Access program. Thousands more will be available with the general availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
New Azure AI tool to help developers build, operationalize, and deploy their own next-gen AI apps
It starts with our new oneAzure AI Studio. We arejust do itto integrate external data sources into the Azure OpenAI Service. In addition, we are pleased to introduce youAzure Machine Learning Command Promptto make it easier for developers to create prompts while taking advantage of popular open-source prompt orchestration solutions such as Semantic Kernel.
IAzure OpenAI Service, which combines advanced models like ChatGPT and GPT-4 with the enterprise capabilities of Azure, we announceUpdateto enable developers to implement the most advanced AI models using their own data; a provisioned throughput SKU that offers dedicated capacity; and plugins that facilitate the integration of other external data sources into a customer's use of the Azure OpenAI Service. More than 4,500 customers are now using the Azure OpenAI Service.
Building responsibly together
At Microsoft, we're dedicated to developing AI technology that creates positive impact and inspires trust. At the same time, we share our own experiences and develop new tools and innovations that help developers and companies implement responsible AI practices in their own work and organization. At Build, we're introducing several new updates, including:Azure AI content security,a new Azure AI serviceto help businesses create safer online environments and communities. As part of Microsoft's commitment to building responsible AI systems, Azure AI Content Safety will be built into all Microsoft products, including Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Machine Learning.
We're also introducing new tools for Azure Machine Learning, including extensibilityResponsible AI dashboard support of text and image data,in preview, allowing users to evaluate large models built with unstructured data during model building, training, and/or evaluation phases. This helps users to identify model errors, fairness issues, and model explanations before the models are deployed, resulting in more efficient and fair Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing (NLP) models. Andfast flow, coming soon in preview, provides a streamlined experience for prompting, scoring, and tuning large language models. Users can quickly create fast workflows that connect to different language models and data sources, thereby assessing the quality of their workflowsMeasurements such as groundingchoose the best prompt for your use case.Prompt Flow also integrates Azure AI Content Safety to help users detect and remove malicious content right in their workflow.
In addition, Microsoft announcedEmergence of new mediais coming to Microsoft Designer and Bing Image Creator in the coming months and will allow users to verify if an image or video was generated by AI. The technology uses cryptographic methods to tag and sign AI-generated content with metadata about its origin.
introduction Microsoft Fabric, a new unified platform for analytics
Today's world is awash with data, constantly flowing from the devices we use, the applications we create and the interactions we have. And now, as we enter a new era defined by AI, that data becomes even more important. Enabling organization-specific AI experiences requires constant delivery of clean data from a well-managed and highly integrated analytics system. But most organizations' analytics systems are a maze of specialized and disjointed services.
Microsoft stuffis a unified analytics platform that encompasses data engineering, data integration, data warehousing, data science, real-time analytics, applied observability, and business intelligence, all connected to a single data store called OneLake.
It enables customers of all technical levels to experience functions in a single, unified experience. It is equipped with the Azure OpenAI Service at every layer to help customers unlock the full potential of their data, allowing developers to harness the power of generative AI to extract insights from their data.
WithCopilot in Microsoft FabricIn each data experience, customers can use conversational languages to create data flows and pipelines, generate code and entire functions, build machine learning models, or visualize results. Customers can even create their own conversational language experiences combining Azure OpenAI service models and their data and publish them as plugins.
Accelerating an AI-powered future through partners
Our customers benefit from our partner collaborations, such as with NVIDIA, which enable companies to design, develop, deploy and manage applications with the scalability and security of Azure. NVIDIA will accelerate enterprise-grade generative AI through NVIDIA AI Enterprise integration with Azure Machine Learning. Only available on Azure, Omniverse Cloud enables companies to aggregate data into massive, powerful models, connect their domain-specific software tools, and enable live collaboration with multiple users across factory locations. NVIDIA GPUs leveraging the ONNX Runtime and Olive toolchain support the implementation of accelerating AI models without requiring in-depth knowledge of the hardware.
New features for Microsoft Dev Box
Microsoft Dev Box is an Azure service that gives developers access to programmable, project-specific development boxes that are preconfigured and centrally managedoffers several new possibilitiesto improve the developer experience and increase productivity. During the preview period, we saw many customers experimenting with Dev Box and we internally migrated more than 9,000 developers to the daily software development service.
Now we've added additional features and options includingCustomization using configuration-as-codeand newstarts developing imagesin the Azure Marketplace and provides development teams with ready-to-use images that can be further customized to the specific needs of the development team. Additionally, developers can now manage custom environments through aspecialized developer portal, Azure Deployment Environments. The general availability of the Dev Box begins in July.
Unveiling a new home for developers on Windows 11 with Dev Home
Developer Homewas introduced in Microsoft Build Preview as a new Windows experience that developers can get in the Microsoft Store.
Dev Home makes it easy to connect to GitHub and set up cloud development environments like Microsoft Dev Box and GitHub Codespaces. Dev Home is open source and fully extensible, allowing developers to enhance their experience with a customizable dashboard and the tools they need to succeed.
Introducing Windows Copilot for Windows 11
Last fall, at our Windows and Surface launch, Chief Product Officer Panos Panay spoke about the power of AI to unlock new interaction models on PC with Windows Studio Effects and DALL-E 2 in Microsoft Designer, and at CES he spoke about how AI will reinvent the way people do their jobs on Windows.
That brings us to itWindows-Copilot.
With the launch of Windows becomes the first PC platform to centralize AI supportWindows-Copilot. Along with Bing Chat and first- and third-party plugins, users can focus on bringing their ideas to life, completing complex projects, and collaborating instead of wasting energy searching, launching, and working across multiple apps.
This builds on the integration we released in Windows 11 in February that brought the new AI-powered Bing to the taskbar.
A preview of Windows Copilot will be available in June for Windows 11.
As you can see, Microsoft Build is going to be a busy time. To give you an idea of what developers will experiencethe eventWe expect around 200,000 registered participants with 350 sessions and more than 125 hours of content over two days. In total, we will announce more than 50 new products and features.
For more information, see the on-demand keynotes from Microsoft's Chairman and CEOSatya Nadella,Kevin ScottAndScott Guthrieon day 1. On day 2 you can see the main notes anchored byRajesh Jha and Panos Panay. In addition, you can explore all the news and announcements inmessage bookFor more stories and news about Microsoft Build products, visit:
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tags:TO,Azure AI content security,Azure OpenAI Service,Bing,Co-pilot,developer,Microsoft 365 Copilot,Microsoft Build,Plugins,Windows 11