Microsoft Corp. made a big deal about its latest plans to give more people access to artificial intelligence (AI) on Thursday. It did this in response to a number of announcements made this week by its rival Google. Microsoft also made improvements to its widely used office software.

Microsoft 365, which contains Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and Outlook emails among other things, now has a new AI "copilot" that was shown by the tech corporation. 

According to Microsoft, a select number of commercial clients will test AI first. This will expedite content generation and free up more time for the staff.

The Redmond, Washington-based business outperformed its rivals by investing in OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT. The company also demonstrated a brand-new "business chat" experience that can access data and do operations across many applications in response to a user's textual instructions.

We think this next generation of AI to unleash a new wave of productivity advancement," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated in an online presentation.

• The announcement boosted Microsoft's shares by 4%.

• This week's events, including Adept's investment, show how huge and small companies are striving to create software that might revolutionise work.

Microsoft and Alphabet Inc., which controls Google, are the primary competitors. Google Inc. promoted Gmail's AI and its word processor's "magic wand" on Tuesday. Google and Microsoft have comparable skills.

• Last year's ChatGPT chatbot frenzy raised awareness of big language models and spurred investment in new technologies.

• This technology creates stuff from history. Changed suddenly. OpenAI just spread GPT-4, a stronger variation.

• Microsoft says this, is an earlier GPT-3.5 model, business data, and application data underpin various Copilot operations.

• RBC analyst Rishi Jaluria believes Microsoft's cloud-based features will attract customers and boost revenue growth.

Jaluria said the Copilot will "generate higher utilisation of Microsoft Office and improve the separation vs rivals".

On Thursday, the firm improved Excel significantly.

Microsoft says that AI can make spreadsheet software's numerical power—previously reserved for analysts—available to anybody who can specify a computation in plain text.

Microsoft's Teams collaboration platform's Copilot can live-summarize virtual meetings like Google's this week.

Microsoft corporate vice president John Friedman displayed this expertise in a chat.

The Copilot bulleted Reuters' queries, including if Microsoft can commercialise the technology. Big language models are expensive and power-hungry.

Friedman claims Microsoft will lower deployment costs.

"Microsoft is working on decreasing the cost and boosting the speed and accuracy of the models, but did not address the pricing or tiring of the copilot system," the Copilot said during the interview. Tiering was meant.

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Friedman says Microsoft is testing Copilot with a limited group of users to improve the technology and ensure its responses are accurate before a wider release. Friedman stated. Friedman remarked that big language models' overconfidence and error-proneness are striking.

On Thursday, Friedman called Microsoft's workplace chat service the biggest advancement since it helps programmes collaborate. Microsoft says an AI will use the morning's emails, meetings, and chats to answer "Tell my team how we adjusted the product plan."

Friedman believes a more customised AI is the goal.

Friedman says we force individuals to use our technology and procedures. It'll start fitting better.