This week, Seattle hosted Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Microsoft Build 2024. The event was packed with announcements of new products and services, alongside a strategic plan to cement their leadership in AI. While enterprise AI remains a priority for both Google and Microsoft, consumer-focused projects are also picking up pace. However, the question remains: is integrating AI and generative AI into every product the right approach? Here are the standout moments from Microsoft Build 2024.
Copilot updates
Microsoft’s generative AI service, Team Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Teams, saw significant enhancements. Beyond facilitating conversations, it now improves collaboration and streamlines project management by handling agendas, taking notes, moderating chats, and providing contextual answers. As Microsoft put it, “Team Copilot expands Copilot beyond a personal assistant to act as a valuable team member—participating and contributing along with the team. And of course, you’re always in control—assigning tasks or responsibilities to Copilot so the whole team can be more productive, collaborative, and creative together.”
Moreover, Microsoft Copilot Studio now empowers users to create custom copilots to automate various business operations. The Early Access Program for Team Copilot and custom agent-building features is available now, with a broader release planned for late 2024.
Copilot+ PC
Although the Copilot+ PC was introduced a day before the Build 2024 keynote, it remains a highlight. Microsoft is making strides in the AI PC arena with its new Windows-based hardware, including the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. These devices, alongside future models from ASUS, Dell, Samsung, Acer, Lenovo, and HP, will utilize Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD semiconductors, boasting a performance 58% faster than the MacBook Air M3.
“Connected to and enhanced by the large language models (LLMs) running in our Azure Cloud in concert with small language models (SLMs), Copilot+ PCs can now achieve a level of performance never seen before. They are up to 20x more powerful and up to 100x as efficient for running AI workloads and deliver industry-leading AI acceleration,” Microsoft stated.
A notable feature is ‘Recall,’ which offers an AI-powered photographic memory of everything users have seen or done on the device. While useful, it raises privacy concerns, but thankfully, all processing occurs on-device. The Windows Semantic Index tool allows users to control what the machine can see and store.
Copilot+ PCs also cater to creative professionals with the Cocreator tool, aiding in image generation tasks in third-party apps like Adobe Photoshop and DaVinci Resolve. Priced starting at $999, these PCs are available for pre-order and will be generally available mid June this year.
Microsoft File Explorer Integration with Git
Microsoft File Explorer now integrates with Git, making it easier for developers to manage and track coding projects directly within Windows’ native file management system. This integration supports monitoring file statuses, committing messages, and managing branches. Additionally, File Explorer now supports 7-zip and TAR compression.
Phi-3-Vision Small Language Model
Microsoft unveiled Phi-3-vision, a new small language model (SLM) currently in preview. Designed for low-computing tasks on mobile and IoT devices, it offers visual reasoning capabilities and multimodal functionality for text and images. With 4.2 billion parameters and a 28K context length, it excels at tasks like transcribing text from images and analyzing charts and graphs.
Although the general availability date for Phi-3-vision is still unknown, other Phi-3 models are already on Azure. Microsoft claims that Phi-3-vision outperforms competitors like Claude-3 Haiku, Llava-1.6 Vicuna 7B, and Gemini 1.0 Pro V in several benchmarks.
Snapdragon Dev Kit
At Build 2024, Microsoft, in collaboration with Qualcomm, introduced the Snapdragon Dev Kit. This compact device, powered by the Snapdragon X Elite, is primarily for developers. It features a 4.6 TFLOP Adreno GPU, a 45 TOPS Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, 512GB of NVMe storage, 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, five USB ports, an ethernet port, and an HDMI port, all designed to support building, testing, and porting new AI experiences and applications.
Priced at $899, it measures 8” x 7” x 1.3” and weighs 970 grams.
Microsoft’s partnerships
Microsoft announced several new partnerships at Build 2024. In collaboration with Meta, they aim to bring Windows Volumetric Apps to Quest headsets, extending Windows apps into 3D space. Developers interested in this preview can register their interest.
The partnership with Hugging Face brings its large language models to Azure AI Studio. Another significant collaboration is with Khan Academy, providing U.S.-based K-12 educators with free access to the Khanmigo for Teachers AI agent via Azure OpenAI service. Khan Academy will also develop a Phi-3-based open-source small language model for math tutoring, enhancing AI-based learning applications locally.
These highlights from Microsoft Build 2024 demonstrate the company’s dedication to advancing AI technology and enhancing user experiences across various platforms. With updates to AI services, new hardware, and strategic partnerships, Microsoft is clearly focused on leading the AI revolution.