Yahoo Finance Microsoft is letting companies build their own AI 'copilots'
Microsoft (MSFT), on Tuesday, announced a new service that will allow enterprises to build their own AI-powered apps. Unveiled at Microsoft's annual Build conference, the offering, known as Azure AI Studio, is one of a slew of AI-based products the tech giant is rolling out as it seeks to become the go-to name in AI in Silicon Valley and beyond.
According to Microsoft, Azure AI Studio will allow companies to create custom apps using ChatGPT and GPT-4. Microsoft refers to these as apps as copilots, because in addition to capabilities found in the company's Bing Chat like searching for data on the web, copilots can be used to access and process a firm's unique data as well.
According to Eric Boyd, Microsoft CVP of Azure AI, a business with a number of different health-care plans could create a copilot that helps employees easily search for the appropriate plan for them. So if an employee is needs insurance that covers eyeglasses they'd be able to use the copilot to search for it using a natural language rather than having to read through pages of unrelated information.
Boyd offered a similar example of manufacturing giant Siemens using a copilot to help workers quickly gain access to and understand quality controls for their own products.
In addition to Azure AI Studio, Microsoft also announced that it’s bringing more plugins to its Bing chatbot. The company previously announced that it is adding plugins for WolframAlpha and restaurant site OpenTable, which will eventually allow you to book reservations from the chatbot.
Now Microsoft says it will also add plugins for services including Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, Redfin, and Zillow. That could help turn Bing into a kind of one-stop shop for a number of tasks on the web.
Microsoft is in a heated race to be the top AI company among its Big Tech peers. The firm received a huge boost from its multi-billion investment in OpenAI, using the organization’s technology to power its own AI services.
The Windows maker has since announced AI-powered products for everything from its Microsoft 365 productivity suite to its various enterprise and cybersecurity offerings.
But rival Google (GOOG, GOOGL) isn’t sitting idly by. The company, which helped come up with the technology OpenAI uses for ChatGPT, rolled out its own collection of new generative AI-powered offerings during its I/O develop conference on May 10.
Like Microsoft, Google is bringing generative AI capabilities to its enterprise productivity software Workspace, and opened up its Bard AI chatbot to the public. The company is also bringing plugins to Bard from companies including Instacart, Walmart, OpenTable, Kayak, Zillow, and others.
Microsoft and Google aren’t the only players, though. According to Fortune, Apple (AAPL) is looking to build out its own generative AI workforce, while Meta (META) is working on its own generative AI products.
Don’t expect this race to end anytime soon.
Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. He's been covering the tech industry since 2011. Follow him @DanielHowley
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and YouTube
Find live stock market quotes and the latest business and finance news