As we approach Super Bowl weekend, we’re thrilled to be a part of the festivities for the first time in four years. This year, we’re proud to celebrate the transformative power of AI and Microsoft Copilot, showcasing peoples’ “watch me” moments with Copilot enabling people to do things previously unattainable. With a simple sentence or two, you will see a budding entrepreneur turn a fledgling idea for a new product into an actionable business plan, a filmmaker’s concept into a rich set of storyboards, and a fantasy football player’s team come to life with a mascot image they can edit inline.

Coincident with the launch of our Super Bowl ad, we are also launching a significant new update to our Microsoft Copilot experience on copilot.microsoft.com and our Copilot app on iOS and Android app stores.  Today when you visit Copilot, you will see a more streamlined look and feel designed to help you bring your ideas to life and more easily gain understanding about the world. We have introduced a cleaner, sleeker look and feel for answers and a fun new carousel of suggested prompts to showcase the power of Copilot.

Today marks exactly one year since our entry into AI-powered experiences for people with Bing Chat. In that year we have learned so many new things and seen the use of our Copilot experiences explode with over 5 billion chats and 5 billion images created to date which have led to sustained growth in Edge and Bing share. Now with Copilot as our singular experience for people looking to get more out of AI creation, we are today introducing further image creation capabilities.

With Designer in Copilot, you can go beyond just creating images to now customize your generated images with inline editing right inside Copilot¹, keeping you in the flow of your chat. Whether you want to highlight an object to make it pop with enhanced color, blur the background of your image to make your subject shine, or even reimagine your image with a different effect like pixel art,² Copilot has you covered, all for free.  If you’re a Copilot Pro subscriber, in addition to the above, you can also now easily resize and regenerate images between square and landscape without leaving chat. Lastly, we will soon roll out our new Designer GPT inside Copilot, which offers an immersive, dedicated canvas inside of Copilot where you can visualize your ideas.

Copilot is free to use and works on Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Or download the Copilot mobile app on iOS or Android.

AI is the defining technology of our time. Microsoft’s advancements in AI align with our company mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. With Copilot, we’re democratizing our breakthroughs in AI to help make the promise of AI real for everyone.

 

 

¹Available in English in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, India and New Zealand.

²15 daily boosts included in Copilot, 100 daily boosts with a Copilot Pro subscription to be used for creative needs, faster image generation, and more detailed images.

 

The post Delivering Copilot for everyone appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

This past year was one of technology’s most exciting with the emergence of generative AI, as leaders everywhere considered the possibilities it represented for their organizations. Many recognized its value and are eager to continue innovating, while others are inspired by what it has unlocked and are seeking ways to adopt it. At Microsoft, we are focused on developing responsible AI strategies grounded in pragmatic innovation and enabling AI Transformation for our customers. As I talk to customers and partners about the outcomes they are seeing — and rationalize those against Microsoft’s generative AI capabilities — we have identified four areas of opportunity for organizations to empower their AI Transformation: enriching employee experiences, reinventing customer engagement, reshaping business processes and bending the curve on innovation. With these as a foundation, it becomes easier to see how to bring pragmatic AI innovation to life, and I am proud of the impact we have made with customers and partners around the world. From developing customer-focused AI and cloud services for millions across Europe and Africa with Vodafone, to empowering customers and employees with generative AI capabilities with Walmart, I look forward to what we will help you achieve in the year ahead.

Enriching employee experiences and shaping the future of work with copilot technology

Bayer employees are collaborating better on worldwide research projects and saving time on daily tasks with Copilot for Microsoft 365, while Finnish company Elisa is helping knowledge workers across finance, sales and customer service streamline routine tasks. Banreservas is driving employee productivity and enhancing decision-making, and Hong Kong’s largest transportation companies — Cathay and MTR — are streamlining workflows, improving communications, and reducing time-consuming administrative tasks. Across professional services, KPMG has seen a 50% jump in employee productivity, Dentsu is saving hundreds of employees up to 30 minutes per day on creative visualization processes, and EY is making it easier to generate reports and access insights in near real-time with Copilot for Microsoft 365. In Malaysia, financial services organization PNB is saving employees time searching through documents and emails and AmBank employees are enhancing the quality and impact of their work. At Hargreaves Lansdown, financial advisers are using Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Teams to drive productivity and make meetings more inclusive. Avanade is helping sellers save time updating contact records and summarizing email threads with Copilot for Dynamics 365, while HSO Group, Vixxo, and 9altitudes are streamlining work for field and service teams.

Reinventing customer engagement with generative AI to deliver greater value and increased satisfaction

MECOMS is making it possible for utility customers to ask questions and get suggestions about how to reduce power consumption using Microsoft Fabric and copilot on their Power Pages portal. Schneider Electric has built a Resource Advisor copilot to equip customers with enhanced data analysis, visualization, decision support and performance optimization. California State University San Marcos is finding ways to better understand and personalize the student journey while driving engagement with parents and alumni using Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Copilot for Dynamics 365. With Azure OpenAI Service, Adecco Group is bolstering its services and solutions to enable worker preparedness as generative AI reshapes the workforce, UiPath has already helped one of its insurance customers save over 90,000 hours through more efficient operations, and Providence has developed a solution for clinicians to respond to patient messages up to 35% faster. Organizations are building generative AI assistants to help employees save time, improve customer service and focus on more complex work, including Domino’s, LAQO and OCBC. Within a few weeks of introducing its copilot to personalize customer service, Atento has increased customer satisfaction by 30% while reducing operational errors by nearly 20%, and Turkey-based Setur is personalizing travel planning with a chatbot to customize responses in multiple languages for its 60,000 daily users. In the fashion industry, Coats Digital launched an AI assistant in six weeks to make customer onboarding easier. Greece-based ERGO Insurance partnered with EBO to provide 24/7 personalized assistance with its virtual agent, and H&R Block introduced AI Tax Assist to help individuals and small business owners file and manage their taxes confidently while saving costs.

Reshaping business processes to uncover efficiencies, improve developer creativity and spur AI innovation

Siemens built its own industrial copilot to simplify virtual collaboration of design engineers and front-line workers, accelerate simulation times and reduce tasks from weeks to minutes. With help from Neudesic, Hanover Research designed a custom AI-powered research tool to streamline workflows and identify insights up to 10 times faster. With Microsoft Fabric, organizations like the London Stock Exchange Group and Milliman are reshaping how teams create more value from data insights, while Zeiss is streamlining analytics workflows to help teams make more customer-centric decisions. Volvo Group has saved more than 10,000 manual hours by launching a custom solution built with Azure AI to simplify document processing. By integrating GitHub Copilot, Carlsberg has significantly enhanced productivity across its development team; and Hover, SPH Media, Doctolib and CloudZero have improved their workflows within an agile and secure environment. Mastery Logistics Systems and Novo Nordisk are using GitHub Copilot to automate repetitive coding tasks for developers, while Intertech is pairing it with Azure OpenAI Service to enhance coding accuracy and reduce daily emails by 50%. Swiss AI-driven company Unique AG is helping financial industry clients reduce administrative work, speed up existing processes and improve IT support; and PwC is simplifying its audit process and increasing transparency for clients with Azure OpenAI Service.  By leveraging Power Platform, including AI and Copilot features, Epiq has automated employee processes, saving over $500,000 in annual costs and 2,000 hours of work each month, PG&E is addressing up to 40% of help desk demands to save more than $1 million annually, and Nsure is building automations that reduce manual processing times by over 60% and costs by 50%. With security top of mind, WTW is using Microsoft Copilot for Security to accelerate its threat-hunting capabilities by making it possible for cyber teams to ask questions in natural language, while LTIMindtree is planning on using it to reduce training time and strengthen security analyst expertise.

Bending the curve on innovation across industries with differentiated AI offerings

To make disaster response more efficient, nonprofit Team Rubicon is quickly identifying and engaging the right volunteers in the right locations with the help of Copilot for Dynamics 365. Netherlands-based TomTom is bringing the benefits of generative AI to the global automotive industry by developing an advanced AI-powered voice assistant to help drivers with tasks like navigation and temperature control. In Vietnam, VinBrain has developed one of the country’s first comprehensive AI-powered copilots to support medical professionals with enhanced screening and detection processes and encourage more meaningful doctor-patient interactions. Rockwell Automation is delivering industry-first capabilities with Azure OpenAI Service to accelerate time-to-market for customers building industrial automation systems. With a vision to democratize AI and reach millions of users, Perplexity.AI has brought its conversational answer engine to market in six months using Azure AI Studio. India’s biggest online fashion retailer, Myntra, is solving the open-ended search problem facing the industry by using generative AI to help shoppers figure out what they should wear based on occasion. In Japan, Aisin Corp has developed a generative AI app to empower people who are deaf or hard of hearing with tasks like navigation, communication and translation; and Canada-based startup Natural Reader is making education more accessible on-the-go for students with learning differences by improving AI voice quality with Azure AI. To solve one of the most complex engineering challenges — the design process for semiconductors — Synopsys is bringing in the power of generative AI to help engineering teams accelerate time-to-market.

As organizations continue to embrace AI Transformation, it is critical they develop clarity on how best to apply AI to meet their most pressing business needs. Microsoft is committed to helping our customers and partners accelerate pragmatic AI innovation and I am excited by the opportunities before us to enrich employee experiences, reinvent customer engagement, reshape business processes and bend the curve on innovation. As a technology partner of choice — from our differentiated copilot capabilities to our unparalleled partner ecosystem and unique co-innovation efforts with customers — we remain in service to your successful outcomes. We are also dedicated to preserving the trust we have built through our partnership approach, responsible AI solutions and commitments to protecting your data, privacy and IP. We believe this era of AI innovation allows us to live truer to our mission than ever before, and I look forward to continuing on this journey with you to help you achieve more.

 

The post Embracing AI Transformation: How customers and partners are driving pragmatic innovation to achieve business outcomes with the Microsoft Cloud appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

As we kick off a new year, we’re thrilled to see people increasingly using and loving Microsoft Copilot for work and life. Our goal is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more by bringing Copilot, the everyday AI companion, to millions of people around the world. We have reached another milestone in this mission with more than 5 billion chats and more than 5 billion images to date. As Copilot continues to earn preference and usage, we’re receiving valuable feedback on how to improve. Two examples: First, there are a set of Copilot power users like creators, researchers, programmers and others who want more rapid access to the very latest we have to offer. And second, our Microsoft 365 customers want access to Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps for personal use.

To help address those needs, today we’re delighted to announce more options for power users, creators and anyone looking to take their Copilot experience to the next level. This begins with the introduction of Copilot Pro, a new premium subscription for individuals that provides a higher tier of service for AI capabilities, brings Copilot AI capabilities to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers, and new capabilities, such as the ability to create Copilot GPTs. We are also announcing the general availability of our Copilot app for iOS and Android phones. Finally, we’re excited to bring Copilot for Microsoft 365 to more commercial customers by expanding the availability to businesses of all sizes, including small- and medium-sized businesses, starting today.

Introducing Copilot Pro: Supercharge your creativity and productivity

Today we’re announcing the availability of Copilot Pro, a new subscription that delivers the most advanced features and capabilities of Microsoft Copilot to individuals looking to supercharge their Copilot experience. Whether you need advanced help with writing, coding, designing, researching or learning, Copilot Pro brings greater performance, productivity and creativity.

Copilot Pro provides:

1. A single AI experience that runs across your devices, understanding your context on the web, on your PC, across your apps and soon on your phone to bring the right skills to you when you need them.

2. Access to Copilot in Word, Excel[i], PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on PC, Mac and iPad for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers.
3. Priority access to the very latest models – starting today with OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo. With Copilot Pro you’ll have access to GPT-4 Turbo during peak times for faster performance and, coming soon, the ability to toggle between models to optimize your experience how you choose.
4. Enhanced AI image creation with Image Creator from Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator) – ensuring it’s faster with 100 boosts per day while bringing you more detailed image quality as well as landscape image format.
5. The ability to build your own Copilot GPT – a customized Copilot tailored for a specific topic – in our new Copilot GPT Builder (coming soon) with just a simple set of prompts.

You can subscribe to Copilot Pro today for $20 per month/per user.

Expanding Copilot for Microsoft 365 to businesses of all sizes

While Copilot Pro is our best experience for individuals, Copilot for Microsoft 365 is our best experience for organizations. Copilot for Microsoft 365 became generally available for enterprises in November. As we said earlier this year, 40% of the Fortune 100 participated in our Early Access Program, and since GA for enterprise, customers like Visa, BP, Honda, Pfizer, and partners like Accenture, KPMG and PwC are already using Copilot — which means thousands of people across industries and sectors have started working in new ways, with an AI-powered copilot at their side. Today we are excited to announce that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available for organizations of all sizes — with no seat minimum. We are also enabling our partners to help every business become AI-powered.

Today’s updates include:

1. Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now generally available for small businesses with Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard Customers can purchase between one and 299 seats for $30 per person per month.
2. We’re removing the 300-seat purchase minimum for commercial plans and making Copilot available for Office 365 E3 and E5 customers (A Microsoft 365 license was previously required).
3. Commercial customers can now purchase Copilot for Microsoft 365 through our amazing network of Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider partners.
4. Last month, we also announced eligibility of Copilot for Microsoft 365 for education faculty and staff.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is even more powerful for organizations because it works across your entire universe of data at work — including emails, meetings, chats, documents and more, plus the web. With natural language prompts like “Tell my team how we updated the product strategy,” Copilot can generate a status update based on the morning’s meetings, emails and chat threads. Copilot is also integrated into the apps millions of people use every day, including Microsoft Teams (which is not available with Copilot Pro). Copilot jump-starts your creativity in Word, analyzes data in Excel, designs presentations in PowerPoint, triages your Outlook inbox, summarizes meetings in Teams – whether you attended or not – and so much more. Backed by enterprise-grade security, privacy, and compliance, and Microsoft’s Customer Copyright Commitment, we can’t wait to see how businesses of all sizes achieve more using AI. Learn more on the Microsoft 365 blog.

Introducing new features in Copilot

As we expand the availability of Copilot to even more people, we continue to offer a great free experience for anyone interested in exploring how Copilot can transform productivity and creativity using AI. Today we’re excited to share additional updates to Copilot. You can get started by visiting copilot.microsoft.com.

1. Copilot GPTs – Today we’re announcing Copilot GPTs. Copilot GPTs let you customize the behavior of Microsoft Copilot on a topic that is of particular interest to you.  A handful of Copilot GPTs will start to roll out beginning today with specific purposes such as fitness, travel, cooking and more. Soon, Copilot Pro users will also be able to create their own Copilot GPTs using Copilot GPT Builder. Stay tuned for more on this experience as we get closer to availability.
2. Copilot mobile app – The Copilot mobile app is now available for Android and iOS. The Copilot app gives you the power of Copilot on the go as your Copilot queries and chats will roam across your phone and PC. The Copilot mobile app includes the same capabilities of Copilot on your PC including access to GPT-4, Dall-E 3 for image creation, and the ability to use images from your phone when chatting with Copilot. Download the app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
3. Copilot in the Microsoft 365 mobile app – We’re also adding Copilot to the Microsoft 365 mobile app for Android and iOS for individuals with a Microsoft account. This new feature is rolling out over the next month. Access Copilot right inside the app and easily export the content you create to a Word or PDF document. Download the app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.

With today’s announcements, we continue to bring Copilot to more customers with more options that work for them. Whether you’re looking to get started with Copilot for free, want to supercharge your Copilot experience with Copilot Pro or are an SMB or Enterprise customer looking to increase your productivity in new ways with Copilot for Microsoft 365, there’s a Copilot experience for everyone.

 

 

[i] Currently in preview, English only

The post Bringing the full power of Copilot to more people and businesses appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

Time and money are two of the most valuable resources people have. And one of the most popular ways for Americans to save on both, is shopping online. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American families spend six hours per week on household planning and shopping. Many of those families do so digitally at Walmart. The world’s largest retailer, famous for its low prices, generated over $82 billion in e-commerce sales in fiscal year 2023 and is steadily growing its active digital customers.

In 2024, the company is further improving the digital shopping experience, building generative AI into its search function to deliver customers a helpful and intuitive browsing experience. Using a combination of Walmart proprietary data and technology and large language models, including those available in Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, as well as retail-specific models built by Walmart, the new design serves up a curated list of the personalized items a shopper is looking for.

At CES 2024, Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon and Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella introduced the new AI innovations to benefit Walmart customers.

Study after study shows that AI is driving impact and value across businesses.

• McKinsey reports AI will create $400-660 billion in value for the retail and consumer goods industry.
• FTI Consulting data shows nearly 80% of online shoppers believe AI personalization can enhance their online experience.
• An IDC study commissioned by Microsoft found that for every $1 a retail and consumer packaged goods company invests in AI, it is seeing a return of $3.45.

Generative AI-powered search

Walmart built an all-new generative AI-powered search function across iOS, Android and its own website. The new capability is specifically designed to understand the context of a customer’s query and generate personalized responses. Soon, customers will have a more interactive and conversational experience, get answers to specific questions, and receive personalized product suggestions.

For example, a parent planning a birthday party for a child that loves unicorns. Instead of multiple searches for unicorn-themed balloons, napkins, streamers, etc., the parent can simply ask the question “Help me plan a unicorn-themed party for my daughter.”

One of the reasons why Walmart and other leading retailers are choosing Azure OpenAI Service is the ability to access the most advanced AI models in the world while backed by the enterprise-grade capabilities found in Microsoft Azure including security, compliance and regional availability. Generative AI in retail is particularly exciting as it can help usher in a new way of shopping; shifting from “scroll searching” to “goal searching,” which makes the digital shopping experience more seamless and intuitive.

Don’t forget about the associates!

Both Walmart and Microsoft share an aligned vision around how AI can help organizations and their people be more productive, more satisfied in their work and go on to solve the most pressing problems.

Over the summer, Walmart launched a new tool, giving its 50,000 non-store associates access to its new “My Assistant” app, which was created and built by Walmart and leverages a unique build of Walmart proprietary data, technology and large language models in Azure OpenAI Service. In just a few months, the app has already made a big impact for associates, assisting with a range of tasks, from summarizing long documents to assisting in the creation of new content.

A history of success
This is just the latest evolution in the Walmart and Microsoft relationship.

In 2018, the companies established a strategic partnership to drive Walmart’s digital transformation. As one of Walmart’s preferred and strategic cloud providers, Microsoft has supported Walmart on a variety of different cloud projects. From powering access to electronic health records at its in-store clinics to centralizing, democratizing and optimizing data, the companies have and will continue to collaborate to accelerate innovation.

Other ways to AI
While Walmart’s approach to generative AI uses a combination of large language models, retail-specific models, and their own proprietary data built on top of Azure OpenAI Service, other retailers may have different scenarios that require an alternative approach. That’s why Microsoft offers a broad portfolio of prebuilt, low-code and pro-code solutions that can benefit all retailers and shoppers, no matter where they are on their respective journey.

Visit the Microsoft Cloud for Retail page to learn more.

The post Walmart unveils new generative AI-powered capabilities for shoppers and associates appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

Today, we’re announcing general availability of Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty across all Azure regions. Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty helps governments meet their compliance, security, and policy requirements while utilizing the cloud to provide superior value to their citizens.

Governments around the world must meet a wide range of national and regional compliance requirements for applications and workloads, including governance, security controls, privacy, and in some cases data residency and sovereign protections. Until now, most solutions for addressing these regulatory requirements have relied upon private cloud and on-premises environments, creating a lag in adoption of scalable, secure and resilient cloud capabilities.

Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty — offering governance, security, transparency and sovereign technology — supports the digital transformation of government customers unlike any other cloud provider in the world. Customers gain automation of best practices to address regulatory requirements while benefiting from the rapid pace of innovation in the hyperscale cloud.

Advancing conversations about sovereignty in the hyperscale cloud

When we talk with government customers, we hear common questions in terms of achieving data sovereignty in the cloud. These often include questions around (1) residency, security and compliance of the hyperscale cloud; (2) controls for data access; and (3) the complexity of addressing regulations that vary by country.

First, Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty is built on the foundation of more than 60 cloud regions, providing industry-leading cybersecurity along with the broadest compliance coverage. Microsoft offers the most regions of any cloud provider. Customers can implement policies to contain their data and applications within their preferred geographic boundary, in alignment with national or regional data residency requirements.

Second, Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty provides sovereign controls to protect and encrypt sensitive data and control access to that data, enabled by sovereign landing zones and Azure Confidential Computing.

A sovereign landing zone is a type of Azure landing zone designed for organizations that need government-regulated privacy, security and sovereign controls. Organizations can leverage landing zones as a repeatable best-practice for secure and consistent development and deployment of cloud services. As many government organizations face a complex and layered regulatory landscape, utilizing sovereign landing zones makes it much easier to design, develop, deploy and audit solutions while enforcing compliance with defined policies.

Customers can also leverage Azure Confidential Computing to secure sensitive and regulated data even while it’s being processed in the cloud. Azure Confidential Computing protects data in memory in hardware-based trusted execution environments, helping prevent unwanted data access by the cloud provider, administrators and users. Customers can benefit from this capability on Azure without having to change existing applications.

Third, customers can adopt specific, sovereignty-focused Azure policy initiatives to address the complexity of compliance with national and regional regulatory requirements. These help customers create cloud guardrails and enforce specific regulations more easily. Customers can layer these policy initiatives to form a complete solution for their specific needs, and use deployment automation to ensure consistency, best practices and save time.

For example, our customers typically start with Azure Cloud Security Benchmark then layer the new Sovereignty Policy Baseline to ensure best practices for digital sovereignty. Then, customers can leverage a regional specific layer, such as Baseline informatiebeveiliging overheid (BIO), a foundational standards framework for information security within the Netherlands government, or the strategic guidelines for migration to the cloud of data and digital services of the Italian Public Administration National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN).

Additionally, the new Cloud Security Alliance Cloud Controls Matrix (CSA CCM v4) policy initiative is oriented toward a global standard that many other regional standards build upon.

Customer and partner collaborations delivering local solutions

Through our product development lifecycle, we’ve had the privilege of collaborating with customers around the world and their trusted partners. These collaborations continue to inform both our technical roadmap as well as solution design and delivery.

In the Netherlands, the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC-NL) has achieved significant traction in their work to establish a cloud center of excellence, deploying Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty to accelerate innovation in the cloud while still managing sovereign controls. Arnoud van Petersen, CIO & Head of IT Services at NCSC-NL, explains: “Our innovation teams are exploring ways to use advanced data and AI capabilities to reduce the time required to interpret signal data and produce advisories from days to minutes, delivering an EU leading rapid response and information sharing in a dynamic cyber threat landscape.”

The municipality of Amsterdam is partnering with InSpark (a subsidiary of Royal KPN) to bring on-premises datacenter workloads to the cloud in compliance with the relevant classification within the Dutch BIO regulation. Patrick Scholte, Director Platforms & Development, shares: “Municipality of Amsterdam opted for Cloud for Sovereignty primarily due to privacy considerations, specifically in compliance with GDPR. Beyond its effective implementation of innovative security technologies, Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty plays a crucial role in facilitating significant internal advancement for us.

“As an organization, it is imperative for us to address the establishment of processes, policies, and guidelines, as an addition to the use of innovative technologies that pertain to data sovereignty,” Scholte adds. “These measures are essential in mitigating evolving risks, and the use of Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty allows us to encode and audit them effectively.”

In Italy, Leonardo is now migrating their public and private customers to a secure public cloud service on the new Italy North Azure region, leveraging sovereign landing zones and advanced technologies such as Azure Confidential Computing. “We have chosen Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty to deliver solutions for our customers in compliance with digital sovereignty attributes and regulations, leveraging the economies of scale, security levels and pace of innovation that today are only available with hyperscale clouds,” says Massimo Tedeschi, Senior Vice President Cyber & Security Engineering, Leonardo.

In Belgium, Proximus has selected Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty in its work with customers across Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to deliver cloud capabilities along with advanced security layers and sovereignty controls to protect sensitive data in the cloud.

“Our customers expect us to provide them with the highest data protection and sovereignty, says Anne-Sophie Lotgering, Enterprise Market Lead at Proximus. “That is exactly why we collaborate with Microsoft to offer advanced cloud capabilities together with the highest security and privacy controls to our Benelux customers.”

Driving a rapid pace of innovation

As the Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty enters general availability today, we’re also announcing new capabilities in preview. These solutions underscore our continued investment in a rapid pace of innovation to advance sovereignty in the hyperscale cloud:

• Drift analysis capabilities: Ongoing administration and maintenance can potentially introduce changes that don’t comply with policies, resulting in the deployment beginning to drift out of compliance over time. The new drift analysis tool inspects your deployment and generates a list of non-compliant settings, as well as a severity rating, making it easier to identify any discrepancies to remediate and verify the compliance of specific environments.
• Transparency logs: Gives eligible customers visibility into the instances where Microsoft engineers have accessed customer resources through Just-In-Time (JIT) access, most commonly in response to a customer support request. With this update, customers can now request access to the preview feature via the Azure portal.
• New configuration tools in the Azure portal: Allows customers to create a new tailored sovereign landing zone in two simple steps using a guided experience.

Learn more and get started today

Get started with Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty today to advance government innovation in the cloud.

Visit microsoft.com/sovereignty for the latest news, visit Microsoft Learn, and reach out to your Microsoft representative to learn more.

The post Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty now generally available, opening new pathways for government innovation appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

This year will be remembered as the moment that we, as individuals, began to harness the power of AI in our daily lives. The last 10 months reflect years of AI research, close partnerships, and breakthrough innovations coming together. This culmination is now unifying our product vision to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

We started with the introduction of Bing Chat, and the feedback was incredible! Right away, people began to change how they search on the Internet, shop, code, prepare for job interviews, improve their gaming skills, and create beautiful documents and images. We proceeded to incorporate these capabilities into Microsoft 365, Microsoft Edge and Windows, unlocking new scenarios with ever greater context and intelligence for people.

Two weeks ago, we took the significant step to bring together all of this under one brand and one experience that we call Microsoft Copilot, launching http://copilot.microsoft.com and making it accessible to anyone on any device.

We’re thrilled by the impact it is having on the industry and, more importantly, on the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Recent survey data shows that Copilot for Microsoft 365 makes people more productive and faster overall in tasks like searching and writing.

What’s next?

As we set our sights on 2024, we’re committed to bringing more innovation and advanced capabilities to Copilot to provide you with the leading way to benefit from AI.  Here are some incredible new features that we have begun testing that you will see roll out soon:

GPT-4 Turbo – Soon, Copilot will be able to generate responses using OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4 Turbo, enabling you to tackle more complex and longer tasks. This model is currently being tested with select users and will be widely integrated into Copilot in the coming weeks.

New DALL-E 3 Model – You can now use Copilot to create images that are even higher quality and more accurate to the prompt with an updated DALL-E 3 model. These capabilities are available to you now by visiting bing.com/create or by prompting Copilot to create an image.

Inline Compose with rewrite menu – With Copilot, Microsoft Edge users can easily write from most websites. Just select the text you want to change and ask Copilot to rewrite it for you. Coming to all Edge users soon.

Multi-Modal with Search Grounding – We are combining the power of GPT-4 with vision with Bing image search and web search data to deliver better image understanding for your queries. This new capability will be available soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Code Interpreter – We are developing a new capability that will enable you to perform complex tasks such as more accurate calculations, coding, data analysis, visualization, math and more. We are gathering feedback on these capabilities from a select set of users and plan to make it widely available soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deep Search – Coming soon to Bing, Deep Search harnesses the power of GPT-4 to deliver optimized search results for complex topics. Activating Deep Search expands search queries into more comprehensive descriptions to deliver more relevant results. More information can be found on our Bing Blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To share a sense of the breadth of what Copilot can do for you, we’ve created a list of some of our favorite use cases for you to try right now – inspired* by our community of fans and preview testers.

Try one of the prompts below and follow your curiosity. Just copy and paste into Copilot at copilot.microsoft.com, in Copilot in Bing or directly from the Copilot tab in Windows 11.

Education	How can I design and improve activity plans for elementary school students to experience and learn about different plants?
Gaming	What are the best methods and tools for stealth and hacking in Starfield?
Shopping	Explain how to choose a mattress based on firmness level and sleeping preferences. What are the different firmness levels and how do they affect comfort and support?
Travel	Plan a 4-day itinerary for visiting Paris and Amsterdam. What are the must-see attractions, activities, and restaurants in each city?
Culture & Art	Analyze Michelangelo’s legacy as an artist and a person. What are the achievements and influences on Michelangelo’s art and life and how did he shape society?
Education	Explain like I’m five the structure of city-states and the characteristics of civilizations throughout Mesopotamia.
History	Are depictions of pirates in movies and novels accurate?
Design	How can I make my living room look more open and refreshing? What are the tips and tricks for choosing and arranging furniture, colors, lighting, and accessories?
Education	Identify and describe the flowers and plants that attract bees and how I can grow them in my garden. How do you pollinate a garden by hand?
Culture & Art	Create an image I can use as inspiration for a tattoo. It should be minimalist in design and feature a sun, moon and golden retriever.
Jobs	How can I get into the semiconductor industry and what are some related fields of study? What are the skills, qualifications, and experiences required?
Travel	What advice do you have for hiking and sightseeing in Big Four Ice Caves?
Science	Explain the theory of parallel universes. What is the concept and evidence of parallel universes?
Shopping	Recommend some DAC (digital-to-analog converter) options for audiophiles. What are the features, benefits, and drawbacks of each option?
Culture & Art	Who were some of the most influential female musicians of the 1960s and how did they impact culture?
Food	Suggest some recipe ideas for a vegetarian dinner on a low-carb diet. What are the ingredients and recipes of each dish?
Health	Create an upper body workout routine for beginners focused on chest and arms using body weight techniques at home. What are the exercises, sets, reps, and rest periods for each session?
Tech & Software	Design an algorithm to find the majority book preference among a group of friends for a book club. What are the inputs and outputs of the algorithm?
Work	Discuss how to work effectively with others in a professional work environment. What are the skills and qualities of a good team player?
Food	What are the best places to eat and drink in Renton, Washington? What are the specialties, prices, and ratings of each place?
Jobs	What are some tips for someone who has been out of the workforce for a few years but is looking to get back into it?
Jobs	Compare and contrast the MBA and MHA degrees for a nurse executive. What are the career opportunities and outcomes of each degree?
Travel	Plan a 5-day summer trip to Hawaii that includes a visit to Diamond Head.
Writing	Write a congratulatory message for a small gift store’s fifth anniversary. Praise their service and atmosphere and express your gratitude and loyalty as a customer.
Writing	Write a story about a cat named Babbi who escapes outside and gets scared. How does Babbi escape and how does he return home?
Shopping	Research and summarize the internet’s reviews about Meta’s Quest 3. What are the features, specs, and pros and cons of the headset?
Images	Create an image I can put on a holiday card featuring 10 English bulldogs.

*Prompts seen in this post showcase some of our favorite use cases of the consumer version of Copilot, formerly known as Bing Chat, since entering preview in February. All prompts seen below are inspired by popular conversation topics and were generated by Microsoft. No real user prompts are shown above.

The post Celebrating the first year of Copilot with significant new innovations appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog

As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we’re continuing to rapidly innovate for this era of AI, with over 100 announcements across the full tech stack from AI systems, models, and tools in Azure, to Copilot. Most importantly, we’re committed to delivering all of this to our customers while building for the future. We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world.

The post A statement from Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Source: The Official Microsoft Blog