Microsoft revealed on Thursday its ambitions to include artificial intelligence (AI) into some of its most well-known productivity applications, including as Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. This move holds the potential to alter the way that millions of people perform their job on a daily basis.
The firm made the announcement at a special event on Thursday that customers of Microsoft 365 would soon be able to make use of a tool that the company refers to as an AI “Co-pilot.” This tool will assist users in editing, summarising, creating, and comparing documents. So please don’t refer to it as Clippy. The new features are significantly superior in strength to the wide-eyed paperclip-shaped original while also being less anthropomorphized, which was based on the same technology that supports ChatGPT.
Users may now ask for a certain chart to be created in Excel, have a Word document instantly converted into a PowerPoint presentation, and have meeting notes transcribed while on a Skype conversation, among other benefits.
Microsoft is also debuting a new idea known as Business Chat, which is a factor that plays a fundamental role follows the user around while they work and endeavours to comprehend and make sense of the data contained within their Microsoft 365 account. According to the information provided by the company, the agent will be aware of not only what is in a user’s email and what is scheduled on their calendar for the day, but also the documents they have been Currently Working On, the demonstration they have been making, the people they are meeting with, and the chats that are taking place on their Teams platform. Customers can then ask Business Chat to perform tasks such as writing a status report by summarising all of the docs on all of the different systems that pertain to a particular project. Users can also ask Business Chat to generate an email with the latest information that might be forwarded to their team.
Microsoft’s announcement follows a month after the company added AI-powered capabilities to Bing and amid a recovered arms race to develop and deploy AI technologies that can transform the ways in which people perform their jobs, make purchases, and generate new ideas. Competitor Google revealed earlier this week that it, too, will include AI into its suite of office productivity apps like Sheets, Gmail, and Docs.
The announcement comes just two days after OpenAI, the firm that developed ChatGPT and is responsible for Microsoft’s artificial intelligence technology, revealed its GPT-4 model, which is the business’s next-generation model. The capability of the update to file lawsuits, pass standardised exams, and develop a working website from a hand-drawn sketch has astonished many participants in early tests as well as a company demonstration.
OpenAI stated that it has attempted to make the tool less biassed and has added more “guardrails” to the platform to help keep dialogues on track. But, the update, along with the actions being taken by more established IT businesses to include this technology, could add to the complex problems that surround the ways in which AI tools can upend professions, make it easier for students to cheat, and alter our connection with technology. No of how you feel about it, the new Bing browser from Microsoft has already begun utilising GPT-4.
A representative for Microsoft stated that users of Office 365 who access the new artificial intelligence tools should be cautioned that the technology is still in development and that the information is going to be required to be verified twice. Although Open Artificial intelligence has made significant strides in improving its most recent model, GPT-4 still suffers from the same restrictions as its predecessors. The business admitted that it is still capable of making “basic reasoning errors” and that it can be “overly naive in accepting evident false assertion from a user.” Despite this, the company stated that it does not fact check.
Despite this, Microsoft is confident that the modifications will significantly enhance the working lives of employees. This is because they will be able to complete jobs in an easier and less laborious manner, which will provide them greater room to be creative and analytical in their thinking.
