It’s becoming clear that Microsoft has big plans for artificial intelligence (AI) and believes ChatGPT (and natural language technology in general) will play a big role.

The Seattle-based software giant took office and home PCs mainstream in the 80s thanks to its Windows and DOS operating systems. In the 90’s, the Internet played a big role in becoming an important part of our lives. Now, the company is about to make history as the company that brought AI to the masses, the hottest tech trend of the century.

ever since £10 billion announced The investment in OpenAI, creators of the ChatGPT chatbot, already integrated the technology into the Bing search engine earlier this year, and talks about plans for various further integrations.

In fact, this means that some of the most famous and widely used applications and tools can be “powered”. With the introduction of natural language AI, we are no longer limited to clicking the mouse, tapping the screen, or issuing simple one-line voice instructions. Instead, you can (in theory) talk to the application in a way that is very similar to being a real person.

Imagine simply telling Word to write you a letter or Excel to create a spreadsheet. This may seem far-fetched, but it’s not far from Microsoft’s vision for how we will use and interact with computers and devices in the next few years.In fact, CEO Satya Nadella Said “All Microsoft products have some of the same AI capabilities to completely transform the product.”

By betting its home on language-based AI, Microsoft has its sights set on completely revolutionizing how we use machines. It is intended to usher in an era of augmented work, general-purpose AI tools, and a new generation of user interfaces. does it work? Equally important is whether it works. Let’s take a look at what we know about that plan so far and what has been speculated about what it means for the future of human-machine interaction.

automated computer code

The first Microsoft applications that integrated natural language tools were built before the public release of ChatGPT. GitHub Copilot, available from 2021, uses OpenAI’s Codex engine (a modified version of GPT-3 specifically trained to write code) to provide coders with autocomplete functionality. GitHub is an online repository of computer code, owned by Microsoft and used by over 100 million software developers. The fact that it was chosen as one of the first integrations of natural language technology with a Microsoft-owned service indicates that the company believes it has great potential to streamline the way software is designed and developed. I’m here.

Redefining search?

Microsoft has already integrated its GPT technology (Generative pre-trained Transformer – the “brains” of ChatGPT) into the Bing search engine, but at the time of writing users have to join a waiting list to access the new Bing. There might be. An interesting element of this is that it represents Microsoft directly challenging Google for the title of king of search. This is the title that Google has held for his 20+ years. Natural language search offers new ways to extract information from the Internet. Instead of simply returning a web page, you can extract facts, figures, and answers and format them to create the most useful answers for your queries. Whether this will permanently change the way we search the Internet is unknown, but Google is certainly concerned enough to commit to developing its own language model. bard.

office of the future

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of speculation at the moment about how Microsoft will incorporate ChatGPT functionality into its world-leading office software suite (formerly known as Microsoft Office and Office 365). A world that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. No specific details have been released, but it’s likely that it will include things like auto-composing emails in Outlook, formatting spreadsheets in Excel, and all sorts of writing tasks that can be automated in Word. There are some obvious use cases. Given that these are the applications that millions of businesses use every day to conduct their day-to-day activities, as promised, full ChatGPT integration is the way many of us spend our work. can have a significant impact on .

group work

ChatGPT functionality is already enabled in Microsoft Teams, a collaborative environment with virtual meeting and video calling capabilities. Paid users can take advantage of the automatic note-taking feature that automatically creates bulleted references for ongoing conversations. It automatically summarizes meetings, translates languages ​​in real-time, creates to-do lists based on conversations that take place, and provides call transcripts and summaries. One of the most interesting features is that these features are personalized, creating individual reports and summaries for different team member roles. This also extends to the ability to report on team members not attending a particular meeting.

power platform

These applications tend to be used by slightly more technical users than those who rely solely on Microsoft’s Office suite. These include Power BI and Power Automate and have the potential to have the most exciting impact on ChatGPT and natural language integration. Power apps are focused on no-code/low-code concepts, allowing users to create their own applications or set up complex automated processes without getting their hands dirty with real computer code. increase. Since users can already perform fairly complex tasks, integrating a natural language interface removes an additional layer of complexity.

Sales process automation

Microsoft’s Viva Sales application, used to manage incoming and outgoing sales communications, recently announced a preview version that uses ChatGPT to automate some of its functionality. Suggested email content will be made available and personalized to contain information that is particularly relevant to each individual customer. According to Microsoft, a salesperson typically spends 66% of his day on tasks that can be easily automated, freeing up time for specific customers or issues that require human intervention.

I work with Microsoft products – will AI take my job?

If Microsoft products could effectively generate output without being told specifically what to do, what would that mean for the careers of the millions of knowledge workers who use them? Does it make an impact?

Nadella herself tried to calm herself down on the matter. He saidWhat this means is that the best way to avoid being displaced by AI, whether you rely on Microsoft products or not, is to make AI your friend instead of thinking of it as your enemy.