Microsoft Inspire 2023: Key Announcements and Innovations
Microsoft Inspire, Microsoft’s flagship annual partner event, recently showcased a range of exciting new innovations and solutions. Here’s a summary of the most noteworthy announcements:
1. Bing Chat Enterprise
Bing Chat Enterprise, now available in preview, is an AI-powered web assistant designed to enhance business communication and collaboration. Integrating GPT-4 with Bing search data, it offers productivity boosts, including book recommendations and in-depth links. It ensures commercial data protection by keeping confidential business data secure and separate from web data. Starting July 18, 2023, Bing Chat Enterprise will be available at no extra cost for Microsoft 365 business users and will soon be offered as a standalone service.
2. Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot leverages large language models (LLMs) and Microsoft Graph data to enhance productivity within Microsoft’s popular applications, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and Teams. This tool offers features like automated meeting summaries and real-time insights, transforming how users collaborate and engage during meetings.
3. Sales Copilot
Sales Copilot is designed to optimize the sales process through CRM task automation, auto-generated email and meeting summaries, and AI-assisted content creation. It integrates with Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365 Sales, and third-party CRM systems like Salesforce, providing a comprehensive solution for managing customer relationships.
4. Process Mining in Power Automate
The new process mining tools in Power Automate allow for detailed analysis of end-to-end processes. With AI-powered root cause analysis and interactive drilldowns, users can uncover inefficiencies and automation opportunities. This feature includes out-of-the-box templates for finance and supply chain processes, with additional updates on Power Automate Premium and Power Apps Premium effective August 1, 2023.
5. Microsoft’s Partnership with OpenAI and Azure AI Studio
Microsoft’s collaboration with OpenAI and the introduction of Azure AI Studio highlight advancements with the Llama 2 models. These LLMs, optimized to run on Windows and Azure, enable developers to build and deploy generative AI-powered experiences securely. The addition of Llama 2 to Azure’s AI model catalog offers customers the ability to fine-tune and deploy models with ease.
As Satya Nadella aptly summarized, “We don’t build technology for technology’s sake. We build technology so that we can empower every person and every organization in every community, in every country, across every segment, across every industry sector in the world. That’s what really brings us together. That’s what makes us unique. That’s what gives us and our people a real meaning in the work we do.”