Microsoft Incorporates Generative AI Tool Into Business Software

"Microsoft Corp. is infusing its popular workplace software with the technology behind the viral chatbot ChatGPT, upgrading PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook with new abilities in its latest move to try to stay ahead in the artificial-intelligence race.

The software giant has gone all-in on generative AI, following its multibillion-dollar investment in ChatGPT's creator OpenAI. In February, Microsoft rolled out a new version of its search engine Bing that used generative AI to give direct answers to questions and had a sophisticated chat tool. It said Thursday that it is bringing the technology to its Microsoft 365 suite of software to enable users to create presentations, write documents and summarize emails -- all from natural-language prompts.

Bing is only a small part of the overall search market. The less than $12 billion in revenue it generated in the year ended June is a small fraction of Microsoft's overall business. Microsoft 365 software is a cornerstone of the company's business and a leader in the overall business-software marketplace.

Reinventing the company's workplace products around generative AI is "a really big deal," Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella said in an interview. "You already have significant usage of these properties. And so the question is, can we use AI to really help solve some of the customer challenges that we see today?"

The significance of that business could be informing how the Bing and Microsoft 365 updates are being rolled out. The former was released as a product announcement at a big media event and expanded to a broader audience within weeks. Microsoft says it will take months to roll out its AI-infused suite of office software.

It is starting by giving the tech to 20 customers, including eight of America's largest companies, Microsoft said, without naming the companies. It didn't say when or if it would charge extra for the upgrade.

Where Bing search is largely about pulling answers from the web, Microsoft's workplace software has many types of customers with varying and complex demands. That's why the company is taking a more measured approach with this release, said Mr. Nadella.

"What is happening in Word is different from what is happening in Excel from what's happening in Teams, and you want to make sure we get all of these things right," he said.

The main feature the company will be releasing is what it calls the Microsoft 365 Copilot. It will be embedded inside its Microsoft 365 suite, and allow users, through natural-language inputs, to generate documents, presentations and original text.

A Word user will be able to highlight a paragraph and the AI can offer different options for a rewritten version of it. The technology can create a PowerPoint presentation based on the text from a document, the company said. It could, for example, take an essay about the French Revolution and turn it into a presentation with multiple slides and images.

Inside Excel, the spreadsheet tool, Copilot can help users analyze sales data, determine trends and create charts without becoming Excel experts.

Microsoft has also built an AI-powered tool called Business Chat that works across Microsoft 365 and can do things like summarizing multiple emails, creating transcripts from conversations on Microsoft Teams and highlighting the times a specific topic came up in meetings." [1]

1. Business News: Microsoft Incorporates Generative AI Tool Into Business Software
Dotan, Tom.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 17 Mar 2023: B.3.