Microsoft (MSFT) introduced a host of new AI features at its Build conference in Seattle on Tuesday, including OpenAI’s new GPT-4o, a trio of small language models and Microsoft’s new Cobalt 100 processor.
The announcements come as Silicon Valley accelerates its investments in AI and tech giants like Microsoft, Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META) and Apple (AAPL) race to thwart during the biggest technological rush in years. .
Microsoft offering OpenAI’s GPT-4o through its Azure AI Studio was the company’s biggest announcement on Tuesday.
The model, which OpenAI launched during a livestreamed event last week, is multimodal and can understand input via text, audio and video. That demo has since become controversial after actress Scarlett Johansson on Monday asked the company to change the voice of its chatbot, which OpenAI presented to answer questions.
The Microsoft news also comes a week after Google launched a series of AI products at its I/O Developer Conference, including a new version of Google Search with AI-based generative responses to questions. user requests.
Microsoft said users will now be able to develop their own co-pilots – essentially AI-based programs – using GPT-4o to create applications that can respond to images, voice and text. The Windows maker also announced that it will make its preview of Copilot in Azure available to all customers in the coming weeks.
Microsoft also showed off its Phi-3-small, Phi-3-medium, and Phi-3-vision small language models. Designed to run on devices, Phi-3 models do not need to connect to the web, allowing users to access them in environments where they would not otherwise be able to run cloud-based models like GPT -4o.
Phi-3-vision is particularly interesting because it allows users to input images and text and then receive information about them via text outputs. So, for example, users will be able to ask questions about tables, graphs or images without needing to go online.
Microsoft 365 is also getting Copilot upgrades, with Copilot for Microsoft 365’s new Team Copilot. The app, according to Microsoft, can manage meeting agendas and take notes, summarize Teams discussions, and answer questions related to these conversations. The app can also track user deadlines and notify each team member when they need to take action.
In addition to new software features and developer capabilities, Microsoft also announced that it will begin previewing Azure virtual machines running on the company’s new Arm-based Cobalt 100 cloud processors.
Virtual machines are essentially software-simulated versions of computers. So instead of having to run 50 individual desktops, you can run 50 virtual machines on a high-powered server.
Microsoft claims its Cobalt 100 chip delivers 40% better performance than previous ARM-based virtual machine systems. In addition to the Cobalt 100 processor, the company says it will begin offering the AMD (AMD) MI300X chip to developers looking to train and deploy AI applications.
It’s all part of Microsoft’s efforts to continue growing its cloud business through AI applications. Google and Amazon are also using a similar strategy to expand their respective cloud empires, but Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar investment in partner OpenAI has helped propel the company to the top of the AI debate.
In its most recent quarter, Microsoft said its AI products contributed 7 percentage points to its Azure and other cloud services revenue growth. This represents an increase from 6 percentage points in the previous quarter.
A year ago, Microsoft first revealed its AI percentage contributions to Azure, saying it then added 1 percentage point to Azure revenue.
Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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