Microsoft Ignite 2023 biggest announcements: Custom AI chips, extended copilot experience, and more

Microsoft announces more copilot experience to its enterprise customers at its Ignite 2023 event.

Microsoft announced several generative AI powered services at Ignite 2023 (Image credit: Microsoft)

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Microsoft at its annual Ignite 2023 event has announced a series of new features and services for Windows PC users, including enhanced AI capabilities, where, generative AI-backed copilot will now be available on more services such as the company’s office suite — Microsoft 365.

In fact, copilot has been available for Microsoft 365 enterprise users since November, and the same is now made available for the general public. Microsoft has also rebranded Bing Chat to Copilot and Bing Chat Enterprise to Copilot in Bing. Similarly, the company is even upgrading Microsoft Sales Copilot to Copiot for Sales.

Bing Chat is now Copilot and works on Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Safari and soon on mobile. #MSIgnite pic.twitter.com/m4P3YzdWxL

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) November 15, 2023

According to Microsoft, “70 per cent of Copilot users said they were more productive and 68 per cent said it improved the quality of their work; 68 per cent say it helped jumpstart the creative process.”

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Microsoft is announcing a new and upgraded Teams which now comes with a new UI along with features like live translated transcripts, portrait blur, collaborative notes option, and a new channel experience.

Earlier this year, we introduced the new Microsoft Teams. #MSIgnite pic.twitter.com/UbTTvQouQW

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) November 15, 2023

Besides, Microsoft also launched its first AI chip — Microsoft Azure Maia AI Accelerator, optimised for generative AI tasks, and Microsoft Azure Cobalt CPU based on Arm architecture. This chip will be used in Microsoft data centres and will power services like Microsoft Copilot or Azure OpenAI Service.

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

Similarly, the company will also be adding AMD MI300X accelerated virtual machines (VMs) to Azure, which are designed to handle AI workloads such as model training and generative inferencing. For partners, Microsoft will also start to offer a new Model-as-a-Service solution that allows partners to easily integrate the latest generative AI models like Llama 2 from Meta and upcoming models from Mistral, and Jais from G42 with their services. Azure OpenAI platform users will also get access to the latest GPT-4 Turbo starting in December via public preview.

Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code solution is the latest development tool from the company, which harnesses the capabilities of generative AI and it also comes with Microsoft 365, allowing users to collaborate and co-create products and services.

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Microsoft Planner Experience platform now combines the capabilities of Planner, To Do, and Project into one solution with an added generative AI capability.

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