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Microsoft has unveiled an improved artificial intelligence-powered assistant that can work without direct commands while supporting the work of entire business departments, as the tech giant steps up its rivalry with Google to create AI products for businesses.
The world’s most valuable publicly traded company said its “Copilot” feature could now serve entire teams within an organization, not just individuals. For example, it can create and assign tasks to specific people and manage the agenda for a group meeting.
The Seattle-based group said enterprise customers would also be able to create custom “agents” that can be configured to work without waiting for human instructions. The company said the digital assistant can respond to an incoming email by automatically suggesting or sending replies, or processing a customer order immediately.
The improved capabilities are part of a slew of product updates unveiled at Microsoft’s annual developer conference starting Tuesday, with Copilot emerging as a flagship product that the company hopes will boost future profits.
Copilot was “a game-changer” in “removing the tedious work,” said Rajesh Jha, executive vice president of experiences and devices at Microsoft.
Microsoft took an early lead in developing generative AI products thanks to its $13 billion investment in OpenAI, as it vied with companies like Google and Amazon to roll out competing services.
Tuesday’s updates come days after Google unveiled a range of AI capabilities that are “multimodal,” with digital agents that can answer questions via video, audio and text. That followed similar product launches and upgrades from companies like Meta and OpenAI.
The announcements are part of an effort by technology groups including Google, Apple and OpenAI to create AI-powered smart assistants that can take the initiative in completing tasks for humans.
Hardware companies also hope that consumers drawn to new AI features will be prompted to replace their old devices. Apple launched a new line of iPads this month, powered by next-generation M4 chips.
On Monday, Microsoft unveiled a new line of AI-enhanced PCs and tablets, challenging Apple’s prominence. Certain devices made by companies like Dell, HP and Samsung would be equipped with Copilot capabilities that could, for example, be asked to ‘remember’ a user’s previous actions.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements, Microsoft said customers using its AI services would now be able to use OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4o, as well as the family of small language models called Phi-3, including a new multimodal model, Phi – 3-vision.
The company also said that a new ability to connect Copilot for Microsoft 365 to a wide range of data sources and applications – such as legal datasets and customer data – would allow the smart assistant to ‘reason’ about a wider range of inputs.
When asked how the more autonomous Copilot agents would be controlled, Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s vice president of business applications and platforms, said users could require a human to approve AI-suggested actions, such as allowing humans to control an AI system to check. generated email before it was sent. Users could also view in real time the steps an agent went through to arrive at a result.
“We don’t say autopilot; We don’t say co-pilot for nothing,” said Jha. “We don’t think the co-pilot can be independent of human intervention.”
The upgraded Copilot tools will be available in preview for enterprise customers later this year.
Investors are eager for evidence that the hugely expensive technology will deliver healthy returns, and while Microsoft has said its new AI tools have helped boost sales, it has not disclosed Copilot user numbers.
Copilot was “at the center of it [Microsoft’s] AI story,” but “the broader adoption curve remains shallower than many (including us) originally expected a quarter or two ago, especially among office workers,” Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in April.