Microsoft’s expansion of AI agents within the Copilot Studio ecosystem was a central focus of the company’s Ignite conference. Since the launch of Copilot Studio, more than 100,000 enterprise organizations have created or edited AI agents using the platform. Copilot Studio is getting new features to increase productivity, including multimodal capabilities that take agents beyond text and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) enhancements to enable agents with real-time knowledge from multiple third-party sources, such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Zendesk. Integration with Azure is expanded as 1,800 large language models in the Azure catalog are made available. Continue reading Microsoft Pushes Copilot Studio Agents, Adds Azure Models

Microsoft has two new chips designed for data centers. The Azure Boost DPU is Microsoft’s first data-specific chip, or data processing unit, and is designed to work with high efficiency and low power. Microsoft anticipates DPU-equipped Azure servers will be able to run storage workloads at four times the performance of those currently in place while reducing power consumption by three times. The Azure Integrated Hardware Security Module (HSM) chip allows cryptographic security keys and encryption keys to be contained in secure modules “without compromising performance or increasing latency.” Continue reading Microsoft Debuts Two New Chips Optimized for Data Centers

Microsoft has expanded its Models as a Service (MaaS) catalog for Azure AI Studio, building beyond the 40 models announced at the Microsoft Ignite event last month with the addition of the Llama 2 code generation model from Meta Platforms in public preview. In addition, GPT-4 Turbo with Vision has been added to accelerate generative AI and multimodal application development. Similar to things like Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), MaaS lets customers use AI models on-demand over the web with easy setup and technical support. Continue reading Microsoft Brings Meta’s Llama 2 to Azure Models as a Service

Microsoft Ignite 2023 was all about the transformative change of artificial intelligence, and the event was the setting for Bing Chat’s debut as Bing Copilot. The company also introduced three additional Copilot offerings: Copilot for Azure, Copilot for Service and Copilot in Dynamics 365 Guides. The new Copilot Studio gained tools for connecting Copilots in Microsoft 365 apps — including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, the Edge browser and Windows — to third-party data. In addition, the company showcased software for client-configured chatbots, and introduced its first custom designed AI processor, the Maia 100 chip. Continue reading Microsoft Rebrands Bing as Copilot, Debuts First Custom AI

Microsoft put the emphasis on security at Ignite 2022, launching Defender for DevOps and Defender Cloud Security Posture Management in public preview. The two offerings protect software development with runtime security across multicloud and multiple-pipeline environments. The company also touted improved protection tools for Windows and Office, beefing-up anti-ransomware capabilities for Microsoft 365 Defender, which now automatically repels attacks immediately on detection. To combat increasingly pervasive conditions like “tool sprawl” and “alert fatigue,” Microsoft combined six product lines into a single security portfolio. Continue reading New Microsoft Security Suite Focuses on Cloud, Ransomware

Adobe, Microsoft and SAP announced the Open Data Initiative during last year’s Microsoft Ignite conference with the intent of creating standards that would assist customers in moving their data between the companies’ services more easily. Now the companies are looking to expand the program. At this week’s Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, they demonstrated how Unilever is effectively leveraging a new common data standard. They also announced the formation of a partner advisory council as a first step toward making the Open Data Initiative available to other companies. Continue reading Tech Firms Encourage Others to Join Open Data Initiative

At the Microsoft Ignite annual IT event in Orlando, Florida this week, Microsoft announced it will soon debut a customer-service virtual assistant as part of its Dynamics 365 product line that will incorporate artificial intelligence. A user will be able to describe a problem in her own words, and the virtual assistant will answer by relying on user manuals, help documents and other materials. The customer can request a human, in which case the bot will assist the human customer service agent; a manager can view the result on a dashboard. Continue reading Microsoft Debuts AI-Powered Software, Customer Service Bot