Microsoft Build 2023: The 5 biggest announcements
Microsoft Build kicks off today, and it has shaped up to be one big AI-focused event. The company has made several announcements on how it’s expanding its use of AI across its apps and services, including in Windows 11, Microsoft 365, and more.
If you want to keep up with the latest, we’ve rounded up all the biggest news from the event below.
Windows 11 is getting an AI Copilot
Image: Microsoft
The Windows Copilot, however, will live within the taskbar. Clicking into it opens up the Copilot sidebar, where you can ask it to summarize, rewrite, and explain text in any of the apps you’re using, as well as adjust your computer’s settings. Microsoft says it will start testing the feature publicly next month before rolling it out to more users.
There are also a few smaller updates coming to Windows 11, including support for Bluetooth LE, the low-energy audio specification that lets you listen to high-quality audio without draining your device’s battery life. Microsoft is also adding support for 10 new languages and dialects in live captions, its feature that transcribes audio in real time, as well as native RGB controls in Windows 11.
Microsoft 365 Copilot now supports plug-ins
Microsoft had some big news to share regarding its 365 Copilot: the addition of plug-ins. The AI assistant will now support three main types of plug-ins, including Teams messages extensions, Power Platform connectors, and tools that use technology from ChatGPT. You’ll also be able to choose from dozens of third-party plug-ins, such as those from Atlassian and Adobe.
Additionally, Microsoft says that it will build all its Copilot and Bing Chat plug-ins with the same standard that OpenAI uses for ChatGPT. This means you’ll be able to use the same plug-ins across all three AI-powered tools, and developers will also have an easier time creating them.
Microsoft Edge will soon come with a 365 Copilot integration
Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is bringing 365 Copilot to Edge. The tool, which will live within the browser’s sidebar, can use the content on the site you’re viewing to help you work on projects in Microsoft 365 apps, such as Outlook, Word, Excel, and others.
For example, the tool should help you do things like draft an email, add data to a spreadsheet, generate status updates based on chat threads, and more. The integration will also support the aforementioned plug-ins coming to the 365 Copilot.
Windows Terminal gets an AI upgrade
Windows Terminal is getting an AI-powered chatbot through an integration with GitHub Copilot. Developers who use GitHub Copilot can now use the chatbot directly within Terminal to take various actions, get code recommendations, and explain errors. Microsoft also says it’s exploring bringing the GitHub Copilot to other developer tools like WinDBG.
But that’s not the only developer-focused update that Microsoft announced. It also introduced a new Dev Home dashboard that should make it easier to set up and use Windows dev machines. In addition, Microsoft is bringing AI-generated app review summaries to the Microsoft store and is introducing a new AI Hub to highlight Windows apps that utilize AI.
Bing is now ChatGPT’s default search experience
With Microsoft investing billions of dollars into OpenAI, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that OpenAI would make Bing the default search engine in its ChatGPT chatbot. Starting today, ChatGPT Plus users will start seeing citations surfaced by Bing appended to the chatbot’s responses.
Source: The Verge
