Microsoft Ignite 2023: Know the biggest announcements; rename of Bing chats, custom AI chips, extended copilot, and more

New Delhi: At its annual Ignite 2023 event, Microsoft unveiled many new features and services for Windows PC customers, including improved AI capabilities, where generative AI-backed copilot is now accessible on additional services, such as the company’s Office suite, and Microsoft 365.

Copilot has been accessible to Microsoft 365 corporate customers since November and is now open to the public. Copilot replaces Bing Chat, and Copilot Pro replaces Bing Chat Enterprise, two more Microsoft products. Similarly, Microsoft Sales Copilot is getting a new name: Copilot for Sales.

At Microsoft Ignite 2023, the firm hosted workshops for its developer community so that they could try out the newest Microsoft technologies. Microsoft has scheduled about 600 seminars for developers to attend this year, either in-person in Seattle or virtually for registered users.

☔ Seattle is buzzing with so many new announcements and sessions going on at once!

🍳 Here’s a mid-day recap of what’s been cooking, but we also want to know how your #MSIgnite experience is going.

🔊 Share your key takeaway, or your favorite part of the event so far. pic.twitter.com/1zviVW9oSf

— Microsoft Ignite (@MS_Ignite) November 15, 2023

CEO Satya Nadella launched the two-day conference on November 15 with points highlighted, during which he routinely announced various pieces of software and hardware of interest to developers and customers. The incident was recently highlighted in a post by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on X.

Copilot will be the new UI for both the world’s knowledge and your organization’s knowledge, but most importantly, it will be your agent that helps you act on that knowledge. Here are highlights from my keynote today at #MSIgnite. pic.twitter.com/4fgMnav3fP

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) November 16, 2023

Join us now for the Day 1 keynote at #MSIgnite, where @Microsoft‘s top executives unveil groundbreaking opportunities in the age of AI, igniting innovation across our diverse platforms.

Dive into the future with us – it’s happening live! https://t.co/upvwVTQrd5

— Microsoft Ignite (@MS_Ignite) November 15, 2023

Bing Chat as Copilot

Microsoft is renaming its ChatGPT-like chatbot and merging it with the Bing search engine in Microsoft Edge and Windows 11 less than a year after its first release. Copilot is currently the generic name for the product.

Today, we’re sharing new data that shows the remarkable productivity gains Copilot is already driving for early users. #MSIgnite https://t.co/OZEU4zVl3u

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) November 15, 2023

Copilot Studio

Microsoft has released Copilot Studio, a no-code platform for developing and deploying personalised copilots and integrating ChatGPT AI chatbots. The Microsoft 365 Copilot paid service has just been expanded with this new capability. Copilot Studio allows companies to personalise Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Security Copilot

Microsoft is unifying its security operations by combining its Sentinel security analytics and Microsoft Defender XDR technologies. The chatbot Security Copilot is at the centre of the integrated system, giving customers streamlined control over a wide range of security-related tasks. It was previewed back in March, but the rollout is only getting started.

Custom AI Chips

Microsoft has created both a proprietary artificial intelligence chip (Azure Maia) and an arm-based central processing unit (Azure Cobalt). As an alternative to Nvidia’s H100 GPUs, which have experienced rising demand for training huge language models and generative picture tools, Microsoft has developed these chips for use in its Azure data centres. Deployment of the Azure Maia AI chip with the Azure Cobalt CPU is scheduled for 2024.

We are announcing new innovations across our datacenter fleet, including the latest AI optimized silicon from our industry partners and two new Microsoft-designed chips. #MSIgnite https://t.co/5488N3pkKG pic.twitter.com/XeO0PDHAiR

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) November 15, 2023

Windows AI Studio

Windows AI Studio, which will provide developers access to Azure AI Studio’s tools and models and integrate services like Hugging Face, was shown by Microsoft. Windows AI Studio provides a tutorial-like interface for configuring models and setting up a workspace, which is useful for tweaking a wide range of lightweight linguistic models.

3D VR meetings in Microsoft Teams

There will soon be a way for Microsoft Teams users to have VR meetings in 3D. Avatars, meeting rooms, spatial audio, and audio zones may all be modified to simulate a true in-person experience.

Microsoft Planner

The new Microsoft Planner interface combines work management and planning. Microsoft To Do, Planner, and Project for the Web were once independent. This functionality will launch on the web in the first half of 2024 after being released in Microsoft Teams Planner.

Additionally, Loop, Microsoft’s new collaboration platform, provides adaptable work areas and pages to encourage teamwork.