Microsoft launches Generative AI tools for developers

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

Microsoft has launched new tools for developers to integrate generative AI into their enterprise software, as Big Tech races to commercialize the nascent technology.

The US tech group’s move centers on so-called “plug-ins,” which are used to connect its Microsoft 365 Copilot — a generative AI service built into its productivity and collaboration software — with a customer’s other software applications .

Microsoft he said on Tuesday that the tools could help streamline routine back-office work by blurring the lines between all the different software applications businesses use.

The announcement comes at the start of Microsoft’s annual developer conference and follows similar moves by Google and IBM earlier this month as the companies scramble to open up the generative marketplace. TO THE to developers and embed technology in the workplace.

Using plug-ins, Microsoft said other software developers would be able to allow the data in their applications to be drawn into a single “graph,” or semantic structure, within Microsoft software. From there, it could be fed into the large language models used in generative AI, allowing the technology to generate insights or recommend actions.

The connections will also allow the AI ​​to initiate an action in another software program, such as deciding when to generate an expense report or submit a ticket to the IT service desk.

However, Microsoft said a person should always approve actions before they are performed to make sure humans remain in control.

Rajesh Jha, executive vice president of experiences and devices at Microsoft, said the technology would reduce the amount of routine work that takes up a large part of many people’s days, as they are forced to switch between applications, emails and meetings to complete the job. .

The move could make generative AI the foundation of the “operating system of the future” for enterprises, said Ritu Jyoti, an analyst at IDC.

He said plug-ins could one day be used to streamline tasks like approving an expense report or optimizing a company’s supply chain. Developers were also likely to adopt the technology to streamline many different work processes in areas such as corporate IT and human resources.

The wave of developer announcements shows that a new battle has broken out in generative AI, with companies “all vying to deliver the same kind of [AI] functionality to developers as quickly as possible,” said Rowan Curran, analyst at Forrester Research.

The tools were intended to transform the technology from a standalone product, like a chatbot, into an “ingredient” that could be used to power other software applications, he added.

The announcement of the new software connectors also marks the latest step in Microsoft’s efforts to transform its Teams collaboration service into a central hub for employees.

Teams will increasingly serve as a checkpoint for digital work processes, posing a challenge to rival collaboration software makers like Google and Salesforce, which owns Slack.

The speed with which tech companies were racing to integrate generative AI into other applications and services like this was likely to cause disruption to many of the most widely used forms of business software, Curran said.

“It’s not clear what the productivity tools landscape will look like in a year or a year and a half,” he added.