Microsoft Build 2024 witnessed a slew of artificial intelligence (AI)-focused announcements from the company that included Copilot, Azure cloud service, data analytics platform Microsoft Fabric, and various other platforms. The event’s keynote session was held just one day after the Surface event, which introduced the Copilot+ class of PCs and various integrated AI features for PCs. Now, expanding on Azure, the tech giant has made GPT-4o, which was recently introduced, generally available through its Azure OpenAI service.
GPT-4o is now available through Azure
Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, which already offered a wide range of choices in Large Language Models (LLM), has now added support for GPT-4o by continuing its partnership with OpenAI. Access to the recently introduced AI model can be obtained through the Azure OpenAI service by anyone with an existing subscription to the cloud computing platform. The tech giant is also integrating GPT-4o’s capabilities – emotive speech, real-time verbal responses and computer vision – with Copilot.
A short demo shared by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the keynote session showed how Copilot helps a user while playing the game Minecraft. An AI chatbot could help in real time by answering questions and suggesting actions. Along with this, the company also shared different ways that developers can use the capabilities of AI models to create unique tools.
Build your own Copilot with Copilot Studio
AI agents or mini chatbots have recently become a new trend in the technology space. OpenAI was among the first to introduce GPTs which are chatbots that can perform a specific task and can be built by giving a text query to ChatGPT. Following suit, Google also announced Gems at its I/O 2024 event last week. Microsoft is now allowing companies and developers to build Copilot apps through a new platform called Copilot Studio.
The most interesting part of the Copilot AI agents is that they can function automatically, based on the instructions sent to them. This means that there is no need to give an order in order for them to go into action. It can be set to catch up on email or complete a data entry task. Just like other AI agents, it can also be built using simple text queries in Copilot Studio. The platform is currently in preview with limited access, but is expected to become generally available soon.
