Microsoft Build brings AI tools to the forefront for developers - The Official Microsoft Blog (2023)

You only need two simple letters to accurately convey the major shift in the technology space this year: A and I. Beyond those letters, however, is a complex, evolving and exciting way in which we work, communicate and collaborate. As you will see, artificial intelligence is a common thread as we embark on Microsoft Build, our annual flagship event for developers.

It’s already been a landmark year for the industry, starting in January with the announcement of an extension of our partnership with OpenAI to accelerate AI breakthroughs and to ensure these benefits are broadly shared with the world. And in February, Microsoft announced an all-new, AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser to transform the largest software category in the world – search.

Since then, developments have accelerated at a rapid pace, with several key milestones along the way, including:

  • Greater availability of Azure OpenAI Service with added support for ChatGPT and OpenAI’s groundbreaking GPT-4 model.
  • Copilots across a wide range of users, including Dynamics 365 Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot for Power Platform.
  • Expansion of a new AI-powered Bing to the Windows 11 taskbar, mobile and Skype; Bing Image Creator to chat; and a full open preview of the platform, no waitlist required.

This is just the beginning of the new era of AI. That’s why Microsoft Build is so important. During this event, we’ll be showcasing how AI is redefining what and how developers build, as well as how AI is changing the future of work.

Before we get into the news, let’s talk about two concepts we are discussing at length during Microsoft Build: copilots and plugins.

A copilot is an application that uses modern AI and large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 to assist people with complex tasks. Microsoft first introduced the concept of a copilot nearly two years ago with GitHub Copilot, an AI pair programmer that assists developers with writing code, and we continue to release copilots across many of the company’s core businesses.

We believe the copilot represents both a new paradigm in AI-powered software and a profound shift in the way that software is built – from imagining new product scenarios, to the user experience, the architecture, the services that it uses and how to think about safety and security.

Plugins are tools first introduced for ChatGPT, and more recently Bing, which augment the capabilities of AI systems, enabling them to interact with application programming interfaces (APIs) from other software and services to retrieve real-time information, incorporate company and other business data, perform new types of computations and safely take action on the user’s behalf. Think of plugins as the connection between copilots and the rest of the digital world.

With that said, let’s focus on the news and announcements we’re unveiling during Microsoft Build.

Growing the AI plugin ecosystem

Microsoft is announcing that we will adopt the same open plugin standard that OpenAI introduced for ChatGPT, enabling interoperability across ChatGPT and the breadth of Microsoft’s copilot offerings.

Developers can now use one platform to build plugins that work across both consumer and business surfaces, including ChatGPT, Bing, Dynamics 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

And if you want to develop and use your own plugins with your AI application built on Azure OpenAI Service, it will, by default, be interoperable with this same plugin standard. This means developers can build experiences that enable people to interact with their apps using the most natural user interface: the human language.

As part of this shared plugin platform, Bing is adding to its support for plugins. In addition to previously announced plugins for OpenTable and Wolfram Alpha, we will also have Expedia, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, Redfin and Zillow, among many others in the Bing ecosystem.

In addition to the common plugin platform, Microsoft is announcing that Bing is coming to ChatGPT as the default search experience. ChatGPT will now have a world-class search engine built-in to provide more up-to-date answers with access from the web. Now, answers are grounded by search and web data and include citations so users can learn more, all directly from within chat. The new experience is rolling out to ChatGPT Plus subscribers starting today and will be available to free users soon by simply enabling a plugin.

Developers can now extend Microsoft 365 Copilot with plugins

We’re also announcing that developers can now integrate their apps and services into Microsoft 365 Copilot with plugins.

Plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot include ChatGPT and Bing plugins, as well as Teams message extensions and Power Platform connectors – enabling developers to leverage their existing investments. And developers will be able to easily build new plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot with the Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio. Developers can also extend Microsoft 365 Copilot by bringing their data into the Microsoft Graph, contextualizing relevant and actionable information with the recently announced Semantic Index for Copilot.

More than 50 plugins from partners will be available for customers as part of the early access program, including Atlassian, Adobe, ServiceNow, Thomson Reuters, Moveworks and Mural, with thousands more available by the general availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot.

New Azure AI tooling to help developers build, operationalize deploy their own next-generation AI apps

It starts with our new Azure AI Studio. We’re making it simple to integrate external data sources into Azure OpenAI Service. In addition, we’re excited to introduce Azure Machine Learning prompt flow to make it easier for developers to construct prompts while taking advantage of popular open-source prompt orchestration solutions like Semantic Kernel.

In Azure OpenAI Service, which brings together advanced models including ChatGPT and GPT-4, with the enterprise capabilities of Azure, we’re announcing updates to enable developers to deploy the most cutting-edge AI models using their own data; a Provisioned Throughput SKU that offers dedicated capacity; and plugins that simplify integrating other external data sources into a customer’s use of Azure OpenAI Service. We now have more than 4,500 customers using Azure OpenAI Service.

Building responsibly together

At Microsoft, we’ve been committed to developing AI technology that has a beneficial impact and earns trust, while also sharing our own learnings and building new tools and innovations that help developers and businesses implement responsible AI practices in their own work and organizations. At Build, we’re introducing several new updates, including Azure AI Content Safety, a new Azure AI service to help businesses create safer online environments and communities. As part of Microsoft’s commitment to building responsible AI systems, Azure AI Content Safety will be integrated across Microsoft products, including Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Machine Learning.

We’re also introducing new tools to Azure Machine Learning, including expanding Responsible AI dashboard support for text and image data, in preview, enabling users to evaluate large models built with unstructured data during the model building, training and/or evaluation stage. This helps users identify model errors, fairness issues and model explanations before models are deployed, for more performant and fair computer vision and natural language processing (NLP) models. And prompt flow, in preview soon, provides a streamlined experience for prompting, evaluating and tuning large language models. Users can quickly create prompt workflows that connect to various language models and data sources and assess the quality of their workflows with measurements such as groundedness to choose the best prompt for their use case. Prompt flow also integrates Azure AI Content Safety to help users detect and remove harmful content directly in their flow of work.

In addition, Microsoft announced new media provenance capabilities coming to Microsoft Designer and Bing Image Creator in the coming months that will enable users to verify whether an image or video was generated by AI. The technology uses cryptographic methods to mark and sign AI-generated content with metadata about its origin.

Introducing Microsoft Fabric, a new unified platform for analytics

Today’s world is awash with data, constantly streaming from the devices we use, the applications we build and the interactions we have.And now, as we enter a new era defined by AI, this data is becoming even more important.Powering organization-specific AI experiences requires a constant supply of clean data from a well-managed and highly integrated analytics system. But most organizations’ analytics systems are a labyrinth of specialized and disconnected services.

Microsoft Fabric is a unified platform for analytics that includes data engineering, data integration, data warehousing, data science, real-time analytics, applied observability and business intelligence, all connected to a single data repository called OneLake.

It enables customers of all technical levels to experience capabilities in a single, unified experience. It is infused with Azure OpenAI Service at every layer to help customers unlock the full potential of their data, enabling developers to leverage the power of generative AI to find insights in their data.

With Copilot in Microsoft Fabric in every data experience, customers can use conversational language to create dataflows and data pipelines, generate code and entire functions, build machine learning models or visualize results. Customers can even create their own conversational language experiences that combine Azure OpenAI Service models and their data and publish them as plugins.

Accelerating an AI-powered future through partners

Our customers benefit from our partner collaborations, such as with NVIDIA, that enable organizations to design, develop, deploy and manage applications with the scale and security of Azure. NVIDIA will accelerate enterprise-ready generative AI with NVIDIA AI Enterprise Integration with Azure Machine Learning. Omniverse Cloud, only available on Azure, enables organizations to aggregate data into massive, high-performance models, connect their domain-specific software tools and enable multi-user live collaboration across factory locations. NVIDIA GPUs leveraging ONNX Runtime & Olive toolchain will support the implementation of accelerating AI models without needing a deeper knowledge of the hardware.

New capabilities for Microsoft Dev Box

Microsoft Dev Box, an Azure service that gives developers access to ready-to-code, project-specific dev boxes that are preconfigured and centrally managed, is introducing several new capabilities to enhance the developer experience and boost productivity. While in preview, we’ve seen many customers experimenting with Dev Box, and we’ve migrated more than 9,000 developers internally to the service for day-to-day software development.

Now, we’ve added additional features and capabilities, including customization using configuration-as-code and new starter developer images in Azure Marketplace that provide dev teams with ready-to-use images that can be customized further for specific dev team needs.Additionally, developers can now manage custom environments from a specialized developer portal, Azure Deployment Environments. Dev Box general availability will begin in July.

Unveiling a new home for developers on Windows 11 with Dev Home

Dev Home will launch at Microsoft Build in preview as a new Windows experience developers can get from the Microsoft Store.

Dev Home makes it easy to connect to GitHub and configure cloud development environments like Microsoft Dev Box and GitHub Codespaces.Dev Home is open source and fully extensible, enabling developers to enhance their experience with a customizable dashboard and the tools they need to be successful.

Introducing Windows Copilot for Windows 11

Last fall at our Windows and Surface launch, Chief Product Officer Panos Panay talked about the power of AI to unlock new interaction models on the PC with Windows Studio Effects and DALL-E 2 in Microsoft Designer, and at CES he talked about how AI is going to reinvent the way people get things done on Windows.

This brings us to Windows Copilot.

Windows will be the first PC platform to centralize AI assistance with the introduction of Windows Copilot. Together, with Bing Chat and first- and third-party plugins, users can focus on bringing their ideas to life, completing complex projects and collaborating instead of spending energy finding, launching and working across multiple applications.

This builds on the integration we released into Windows 11 back in February that brought the new AI-powered Bing to the taskbar.

A preview of Windows Copilot will start to become available for Windows 11 in June.

As you can see, it’s going to be a busy time at Microsoft Build. To give you a sense of what developers are going to experience at the event, we’re expecting approximately 200,000 registered attendees, with 350 sessions and more than 125 hours of content over two days. In total, we’ll announce more than 50 new products and features.

For more information, make sure to watch keynotes on demand from Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, Kevin Scott and Scott Guthrie on Day 1. On Day 2, watch the keynotes anchored by Rajesh Jha and Panos Panay. Additionally, you can explore all the news and announcements in the Book of News and read more stories and news about products from Microsoft Build here:

RELATED:

Watch Microsoft Build keynotes and view videos and photos

Microsoft outlines framework for building AI apps and copilots; expands AI plugin ecosystem

Bing at Microsoft Build 2023: Continuing the Transformation of Search

Empowering every developer with plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot

Bringing the power of AI to Windows 11 – unlocking a new era of productivity for customers and developers with Windows Copilot and Dev Home

Build next-generation, AI-powered applications on Microsoft Azure

Introducing Microsoft Fabric: Data analytics for the era of AI

Tags: AI, Azure AI Content Safety, Azure OpenAI Service, Bing, copilots, developers, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Build, plugins, Windows 11

FAQs

What is Microsoft build 2023? ›

Microsoft Build 2023 focused heavily on artificial intelligence and its integration across Microsoft's products and services. Microsoft introduced its AI personal assistant, Copilot, to Windows 11.

What is Microsoft responsible AI? ›

The Microsoft Responsible AI Standard is our internal playbook for responsible AI. It shapes the way in which we create AI systems, by guiding how we design, build, and test them.

How is Microsoft implementing AI? ›

Microsoft AI, powered by Azure, provides billions of intelligent experiences every day in Windows, Xbox, Microsoft 365, Teams, Azure AI, Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Defender. Our AI tools and technologies are designed to benefit everyone at every level in every organization.

Which Azure tool can help you build artificial intelligence AI applications? ›

Azure Kubernetes Service Edge Essentials is an on-premises Kubernetes implementation of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) that automates running containerized applications at scale.

Is Microsoft building a metaverse? ›

Microsoft intends Metaverse apps to be used in business, education, training and entertainment. These real-world requirements can be upgraded and reinvented using avatars, AR and VR.

Where is MSBuild 2023? ›

Agenda. It's all happening live at The Summit, 900 Pine Street in Seattle, May 23–25, 2023 PDT. Agenda is subject to change.

Is Microsoft developing AI? ›

April 18 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT. O) is developing its own artificial intelligence chip code-named "Athena" that will power the technology behind AI chatbots like ChatGPT, the Information reported on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Does Microsoft work with AI? ›

Across Microsoft 365, AI powers innovative apps that can help you write and design better, visualize maps and charts in Excel, and streamline your inbox. Learn how AI makes Office apps easier to use, more collaborative, and more secure.

How does Microsoft seeing AI work? ›

About Seeing AI

Point your phone's camera, select a channel, and hear a description of what the AI has recognized around you. With this intelligent camera app, just hold up your phone and hear information about the world around you.

Who is Microsoft partner to build massive AI? ›

Cloud computing: Microsoft and Nvidia are building a 'massive' AI supercomputer. Here's why. The partnership makes Microsoft Azure the first public cloud to incorporate Nvidia's full AI stack -- its GPUs, networking, and AI software.

Will AI replace Excel? ›

Assistant, not Replacement

However, at least for the foreseeable future, AI is more like an assistant than a replacement. AI tools can automate time-consuming tasks to improve your overall productivity. They also provide a great launching point that you can use your human brain to improve and enhance.

What is Google's AI called? ›

That is the Shakespearean question an Associated Press reporter sought to answer while testing out Google's artificially intelligent chatbot. The recently rolled-out bot dubbed Bard is the internet search giant's answer to the ChatGPT tool that Microsoft has been melding into its Bing search engine and other software.

Which platform is most preferred for AI development? ›

1. Google Cloud AI Platform. Google Cloud AI Platform is a cloud-based service that allows developers to build, train, and deploy machine learning models with popular frameworks. With plenty of widely adopted pre-trained models, AI developers can quickly start building their own tools with the basics covered.

What is the most powerful AI program? ›

GPT-3 was released in 2020 and is the largest and most powerful AI model to date. It has 175 billion parameters, which is more than ten times larger than its predecessor, GPT-2.

Which software is best for making AI? ›

Top 10 AI Software Platforms for 2023
  • Google Cloud Learning Machine. ...
  • IBM Watson. ...
  • NVIDIA Deep Learning AI Software. ...
  • Content DNA Platform. ...
  • Nia Infosys. ...
  • Azure Machine Learning Studio. ...
  • Cortana. ...
  • Salesforce Einstein.
Jan 22, 2023

What companies are currently getting involved in building the metaverse? ›

Top 10 companies investing in the metaverse in 2023
  • 3 Google.
  • 4 Facebook. ...
  • 5 Decentraland. ...
  • 6 Nvidia. ...
  • 7 Shopify. ...
  • 8 Unity Technologies. ...
  • 9 Roblox. ...
  • 10 Epic Games. As the creator of the immensely popular game Fortnite, it is hardly surprising that Epic Games would want its success in immersive technologies to continue. ...
Jan 20, 2023

Who are building the metaverse now? ›

Roblox Corporation

Some of Roblox's games are virtual worlds that allow people to interact and socialize. Roblox Corporation is also working to build a metaverse where people can make avatars, games, purchase items, socialize, and use a real voice chat function.

Which company is building the metaverse infrastructure? ›

The Metaverse, created by Google, it is a virtual reality world where people can explore and interact with immersive 3D environments. It utilizes powerful technology to create compelling interactive experiences and innovative tools for users to communicate their creativity.

How much does Microsoft Build cost? ›

The Microsoft Build digital experience is free and is great for those who want to access sessions on their own schedule, no matter where they are.

Is MSBuild free? ›

What's the cost to attend? Digital attendance at Microsoft Build is free and at no cost.

What is the difference between Visual Studio and MSBuild? ›

Visual Studio determines the build order and calls into MSBuild separately (as needed), all completely under Visual Studio's control. Another difference arises when MSBuild is invoked with a solution file, MSBuild parses the solution file, creates a standard XML input file, evaluates it, and executes it as a project.

Is AI replacing developers? ›

While AI is currently being used to improve software engineering, many people fear that it could eventually replace human developers altogether. But is this really the case? The truth is that AI is unlikely to replace high-value software engineers who build complex and innovative software.

Is Elon Musk building an AI? ›

startup to compete with OpenAI, which he cofounded. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is working to launch an artificial intelligence firm to rival OpenAI, the Financial Times reported. Musk has reportedly acquired thousands of Nvidia GPUs and has been recruiting AI researchers and engineers.

Has Elon Musk created AI? ›

Twitter owner Elon Musk has founded a new artificial intelligence company named X.AI, according to a Nevada business filing from last month. The filing, dated March 9, lists Musk as the company's sole director and Jared Birchall, who manages Musk's family office, as its secretary.

What is the salary of AI engineer in Microsoft in USA? ›

The base salary for Senior AI Engineer in companies like MICROSOFT CORP range from $121,849 to $155,891 with the average base salary of $139,378.

Does Bill Gates support AI? ›

He said he sees big potential for AI to create shockwaves in all industries where it will change the way we think about things. "In health and education, used properly, it will be fantastic," Gates said. "That's a big deal.

Is Microsoft investing in AI? ›

Microsoft announced a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment with the artificial intelligence lab OpenAI. The investment is the third phase of the partnership, following Microsoft's previous investments in 2019 and 2021.

Did Microsoft invest in OpenAI? ›

Today, we are announcing the third phase of our long-term partnership with OpenAI through a multiyear, multibillion dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs to ensure these benefits are broadly shared with the world.

How much does seeing AI cost? ›

Seeing AI is a free app that narrates the world around you.

Who helped Bill Gates build Microsoft? ›

Inspired by the January cover of Popular Electronics magazine, friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft – sometimes Micro-Soft, for microprocessors and software – to develop software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer.

Who is the head of AI at Microsoft? ›

Lili Cheng - Corporate Vice President - Microsoft, AI & Research | LinkedIn.

Who owns the most advanced AI? ›

Top 5 World's Most Advanced AI Systems | 2023
  • GPT-3 (OpenAI) The first in our list is GPT-3 short for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 is the third series of generative language models developed by OpenAI. ...
  • AlphaGo (Google DeepMind) ...
  • Watson (IBM) ...
  • Sophia (Hanson Robotics) ...
  • Tesla Autopilot (Tesla Inc)

What AI can't replace? ›

As such, jobs that require high emotional intelligence, such as therapists, social workers, and nurses, are not likely to be replaced by AI. Specialized Professionals: Jobs that require deep expertise in a particular field, such as doctors, lawyers, and scientists, are less likely to be fully replaced by AI.

What will replace MS Excel? ›

Top 10 Alternatives to Microsoft Excel
  • Quip.
  • Apple Numbers.
  • Zoho Sheet.
  • WPS Spreadsheets.
  • LibreOffice Calc.
  • Google Workspace.
  • PDF Tables.
  • Apache OpenOffice Calc.

Who is the Google engineer that thinks AI? ›

Is Conscious. The engineer, Blake Lemoine, contends that the company's language model has a soul. The company denies that and says he violated its security policies.

What is the Amazon AI called? ›

Amazon (AMZN) said that it will provide artificial intelligence (AI) language models, called Amazon Bedrock, through its AWS platform. The company joins Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOGL) in announcing forays into AI. The news contributed to gains of 4.7% for Amazon stock on April 13, 2023.

Who is Google chief AI? ›

Dean joined Google in mid-1999, and is currently the head of its Artificial Intelligence division.

What is the meaning of Microsoft Build? ›

The Microsoft Build Engine is a platform for building applications. This engine, which is also known as MSBuild, provides an XML schema for a project file that controls how the build platform processes and builds software. Visual Studio uses MSBuild, but MSBuild doesn't depend on Visual Studio.

Will there be a Microsoft Office 2023? ›

Changes will begin rolling out for Office.com in November 2022. And then changes will begin rolling out for the Office app on Windows and the Office mobile app in January 2023.

What is the next version of Office 2023? ›

There's no specific release date but Microsoft is promising it for January 2023. Summary The Office version will be retired on April 11, 2023 by Microsoft. While it won't stop working after that date, it won't receive any more security updates going forward.

What is the difference between VS build and MSBuild? ›

Visual Studio determines the build order and calls into MSBuild separately (as needed), all completely under Visual Studio's control. Another difference arises when MSBuild is invoked with a solution file, MSBuild parses the solution file, creates a standard XML input file, evaluates it, and executes it as a project.

Does Microsoft Build cost money? ›

What's the cost to attend? Digital attendance at Microsoft Build is free and at no cost. The Seattle in-person attendee registration fee is $1,525 USD. In-person attendees can choose to add a Pre-day workshop to their registration for an additional fee of $225 USD.

How many people attend Microsoft Build? ›

Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting your journey, Microsoft Build 2023 is sure to provide valuable information and inspiration to fuel your innovation. Over 5,000 people are expected to attend in-person and an additional 200,000 are expected to attend online.

What are the changes in Microsoft 2023? ›

Changes to cloud storage

Starting February 1, 2023, cloud storage used across Microsoft 365 apps and services will include Outlook.com attachments data and OneDrive data. All data will continue to be protected with Microsoft's comprehensive set of security features.

What will replace Microsoft Office? ›

Top 10 Alternatives to Microsoft 365
  • Google Workspace.
  • OpenOffice.
  • WPS Office.
  • LibreOffice.
  • ONLYOFFICE.
  • OfficeSuite.
  • Polaris Office.
  • WordPerfect.

What are the changes in Microsoft January 2023? ›

On January 9, 2023, Microsoft enhanced the capabilities of detecting and notifying Azure fraud alerts. Partners will be able to register a new webhook, azure-fraud-event-detected, in Partner Center webhook events. The Partner Center webhook APIs allow partners to register for resource change events.

What is new in Excel 2023? ›

Welcome to the April 2023 update. This month, in Excel for web, Chart Task Pane is now generally available along with hyperlinks in comments and performance improvements related to conditional formatting (CF) - CF performance improvements also available in Excel for Windows and Mac.

How much is Microsoft Office 2023? ›

Early in 2023, Microsoft announced an even cheaper option, Microsoft 365 Basic(Opens in a new window), which gets you 100GB of OneDrive storage and includes only the web and mobile versions of the apps, but it costs just $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year.

What is the new Excel update 2023? ›

Welcome to the March 2023 update. This month, we are excited to announce several new features across web, Windows, and Mac. For web users, speed up large workbooks with Check Performance, insert and edit formulas with Formula Argument Assistance, and enhance your query organization with Drag & Drop in Queries Pane.

Is MSBuild a build tool? ›

MSBuild is a build tool that helps automate the process of creating a software product, including compiling the source code, packaging, testing, deployment and creating documentations. With MSBuild, it is possible to build Visual Studio projects and solutions without the Visual Studio IDE installed.

What are Microsoft build tools? ›

Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022

These Build Tools allow you to build Visual Studio projects from a command-line interface. Supported projects include: ASP.NET, Azure, C++ desktop, ClickOnce, containers, .NET Core, .NET Desktop, Node.js, Office and SharePoint, Python, TypeScript, Unit Tests, UWP, WCF, and Xamarin.

Is Microsoft build virtual? ›

This year's Microsoft Build offers a full program, both online and in-person, to suit every attendee, whether you're a professional developer, data pro, or a brand-new coder.

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