MondayFounder

In the past year, one company has taken the world by storm with its groundbreaking advancements in artificial intelligence. OpenAI, a well-funded startup, has captivated audiences with its viral chatbot, ChatGPT. Recently, at the Build conference for software developers, Microsoft showcased its strong collaboration with OpenAI, having invested billions in the startup.

During the conference’s opening day, a captivating on-stage conversation unfolded between Greg Brockman, the co-founder and president of OpenAI, and Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s technology chief. Their unique partnership and the immense potential of AI were emphasized throughout the discussion. As the crowd gathered at the Seattle Convention Center, Scott confidently declared, “You all are the ones who are going to make AI great.”

In alignment with this vision, Microsoft introduced a range of developer products that leverage OpenAI’s cutting-edge technology:

1. Azure cloud tools: These new tools on the Azure platform provide developers with customizable text summarization capabilities, enhancing their efficiency and productivity.

2. Data-centric chatbot: An upcoming chatbot promises to assist developers in working with data, streamlining the process of data analysis and preparation.

3. Plug-ins for ChatGPT: Developers can now create plug-ins that seamlessly integrate with ChatGPT and other chatbots within Microsoft’s product ecosystem. This integration extends to a new chatbot debuting in Windows next month.

4. GitHub Copilot integration: Developers utilizing the GitHub Copilot feature will gain access to a chatbot within the Windows Terminal command-line program. This integration aims to provide real-time coding suggestions and support.

The release of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November garnered significant attention from consumers worldwide. Consequently, leading companies such as Atlassian, Morgan Stanley, and Salesforce quickly showcased their integrations with OpenAI’s powerful GPT-4 language model, which serves as the backbone of ChatGPT. These models, including alternatives developed by Amazon and Google, have been trained on extensive internet datasets and can generate text that sounds remarkably human-like.

This technology falls under the umbrella of generative AI, a popular field that enables computer-generated responses based on human input. During his keynote address at the Build conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella expressed his belief that generative AI would revolutionize software development, proclaiming, “Every layer of the software stack is going to be changed forever, and no better place to start than the actual developer stack. We as developers, how do we build, is fundamentally changing.”

Enriching Microsoft’s software properties, particularly the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, is vital for third-party developers. By expanding the capabilities of applications like Microsoft Teams, companies can accomplish a wider range of processes and tasks within a single hub, reducing the likelihood of switching to alternative solutions like Google Workspace.

Microsoft showcased numerous plug-in developers during the conference, including notable companies such as Adobe, Asana, Canva, Cloudflare, Redfin, Spotify, and TripAdvisor. In a live demonstration, the Windows chatbot seamlessly activated a Spotify playlist, designed a company logo using Adobe Express, and shared it with colleagues via Teams in response to a series of typed messages.

Nadella’s forward-thinking approach also led to the direct incorporation of GPT-4 into various Microsoft products, including Teams and the Bing search engine. These AI-driven bots, branded as “Copilot,” emphasize collaboration with humans, distinguishing them from autonomous systems like Tesla’s Autopilot.

“We are adding Copilot into everything,” stated Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and AI group, in a recent CNBC interview. “We’ve evangelized internally and got every team excited about it. We are building a common stack across Microsoft that the entire company is building on top of.”