Microsoft Corp. isn’t spending much time celebrating its 50th birthday — it’s too busy trying to skew younger with an outright onslaught of artificial intelligence (AI) moves.
At an event Friday at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters, the software giant recognized its Golden Jubilee with a slew of new features for Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant.
To start off, the company is bringing its Copilot Vision feature to Windows and mobile, enabling it to analyze real-time video from a mobile camera, and let the AI assistant offer tips for everything from home improvement to gardening. Microsoft is also bringing Copilot Vision to the Copilot app for iOS and Android, and a similar feature is on deck for Windows. The Copilot app on Windows is being updated to support Copilot Vision across one’s PC.
Microsoft is adding something called Actions to Copilot that lets it proactively complete online tasks on its own. A constellation of travel- and vacation-focused service companies including Booking.com, Expedia Inc., Kayak, Tripadvisor, Vrbo and Priceline.com are partnering with Microsoft so Copilot can help users plan upcoming trips, as well as make restaurant reservations on OpenTable, and order from 1-800-Flowers.com for floral arrangements. Microsoft says Copilot’s Actions feature “work with most websites across the web.”
Another Copilot tool turns online content into AI-generated podcasts, and yet another finds and buys product deals.
Taken together, the new features make Copilot more proactive, according to Microsoft.
At the same time, Microsoft continues to integrate Copilot into its heavily-used productivity suites for business — a key advantage in an increasingly crowded field that includes much younger rivals such as Anthropic, Elon Musk’s combined xAI-X, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc., and — yes — eventually OpenAI.
During an internal meeting this week, Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nandella challenged his executive team to “rethink the way we build software,” Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s consumer chief marketing officer, told Reuters.
The torrent and frequency with which Microsoft is pursuing AI shouldn’t be surprising.
Over the decades, Microsoft has shown an uncanny knack to pivot at critical junctures and catch up with (even assume leadership in) emerging technologies such as the internet and mobile devices. Now, its AI ambitions are surpassing its operating system origins. Remember, it was an early investor in OpenAI, and proceeded to pump $13 billion into the ChatGPT maker.
Inevitably, its audacious AI avalanche of products and services will put it on a collision course with OpenAI.
If Friday’s whirlwind of Copilot announcements are any indication, Microsoft does not intend to age gracefully.
