Microsoft
is going all-in on generative artificial intelligence—and it seems convinced that is exactly what customers want.
On Wednesday, the software giant is kicking off a two-day conference, called Microsoft Ignite, that features more than 100 product announcements—most of them tied one way or another to AI.
Microsoft (ticker: MSFT) also unveiled the results of a survey of 297 early users of Copilot for Microsoft 365, an AI-based companion for the company’s widely used suite of productivity apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams. The survey found the software is resulting in improved productivity and better work product, the company said.
And Microsoft needs that to be the conclusion of the survey. The company launched the 365 Copilot two weeks ago, at a price of $30 per user a month. For volume customers, that price point could mean doubling the cost of running 365, or more. The theory is an extra $360 a year per user should be trivial, if it pays off with higher productivity. CEO Satya Nadella is kicking off Ignite Wednesday morning with a keynote address that will almost certainly discuss the early customer reception for the software.
According to the survey, 70% of Copilot users said they were more productive, while 68% said it improved the quality of their work. The survey found that 64% said it helped them spend less time on email; and 85% said using AI helped them get to a good first draft of documents faster.
According to Microsoft, 22% of users said it saved them more than 30 minutes a day; the average time saved was 14 minutes a day. About 27% of users said they found information in their files faster using Copilot; 77% said they had no interest in giving up access to Copilot.
While the Ignite event is mostly focused on new software updates, the company is also unveiling two new Microsoft-designed chips: Azure Maia AI Accelerator for training and inference workloads, and Azure Cobalt CPU, an Arm-based processor for more general cloud computing work. Both will roll out in 2024 in the Azure cloud infrastructure. The company also announced expanded agreements to use processors in Azure from both
Nvidia
(NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Microsoft said in a blog post Wednesday morning that it expect its Copilot software will extend across its suite of applications, reaching every user, “from office workers and front-line workers to developers and IT professionals.” Among other things, Microsoft is rebranding its Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise search experiences as simply, “Copilot.”
The company is also launching a new tool called Microsoft Copilot Studio to allow customers to modify Copilot software with individualized data, security and policy preferences for both internal and external customer use.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is launching new versions of its Copilot software for specific use cases. Those include Copilot for Service, for contact centers and customer service desks; Copilot for Azure, for IT administrative tasks; and Copilot for Sales, which integrates with relevant customer software and content-creation tools.
Also launching is Azure AI Studio, a new platform to “more easily explore, build, test and deploy AI apps.”
“With Azure AI Studio, you can build your own copilots, train your own, or ground other foundational and open-source models with data that you bring,” the company said.
Corrections & Amplifications
Microsoft’s survey of early Copilot users was based on 297 responses. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was based on 22,000 users.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]
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