Amid the battle for AI supremacy between Google and Microsoft, business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates said in an interview on Friday that improvements in artificial intelligence are the “most important” innovation at the moment. He said that applications of generative AI like ChatGPT could improve office efficiency by drafting invoices and letters, in a podcast with German business paper Handelsblatt (via CNBC), adding that AI will “change our world.” Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled a new version of Bing and Edge powered by a “new, next-generation OpenAI large language model that is more powerful than ChatGPT and customised specifically for search,” according to Microsoft’s blog post. Early demonstrations show a sidebar that’ll help users summarise content on the web. Microsoft is also preparing to integrate similar tech into its productivity apps including Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Gates suggested that while AI models require too much computation and are not always accurate, he’s positive about the advancements both Microsoft and Google have been making. “The progress over the next couple of years to make these things even better will be profound,” he said. Microsoft’s announcement for the new Bing came only a day after Google announced its own ChatGPT competitor called Bard. The search engine giant is also planning on integrating chatbot capabilities into its biggest product. The optimisations that AI can offer for reading and writing will make a “huge impact,” Gates said. He added that it will help improve efficiency and meaningfully improve outcomes in the health care and education spaces. “The easiest way to understand it is that AI has got very good at speech recognition and visual recognition.” Gates is still a consultant for Microsoft, the company he co-founded in 1975 and led for over two decades.
