Microsoft Build 2024: Key products announced on Day 1

Here are the key products announced during Day 1 of Microsoft Build, the annual developer conference of the Redmond-based software giant being held between May 21 – 23.

• Phi-3-vision is now available in Azure
• A new Real-Time Intelligence within Microsoft Fabric
• Copilot Studio to empower developers to build copilots
• GitHub now has its first set of Copilot extensions
• Microsoft introduces Team Copilot
• GPT-40 now available in Azure AI Studio

Phi-3-vision is now available in Azure

• Microsoft announced that Phi-3-vision, a new multimodal model in the Phi-3 family of AI small language models (SLMs) developed by Microsoft, is now available in Azure. Phi-3 models are powerful, cost-effective and optimized for personal devices.
• Phi-3-vision offers the ability to input images and text and receive text responses. For example, users can ask questions about a chart or ask an open-ended question about specific images.
• Developers can experiment with these state-of-the-art frontier models in the Azure AI Playground, and they can start building with and customizing with the models in Azure AI Studio.

A new Real-Time Intelligence within Microsoft Fabric

• A new Real-Time Intelligence (now in preview mode) within Microsoft Fabric that provides an end-to-end Software as a Service (SaaS) solution empowering customers to act on high-volume, time-sensitive and highly granular data to make faster and more informed business decisions.
• One of its use cases is to help analysts with simple low/no-code experiences, as well as pro developers with code-rich user interfaces.

Copilot Studio to empower developers to build copilots

• Microsoft introduced Copilot Studio with new agent capabilities that would empower developers to build copilots that can proactively respond to data and events, tailored to specific tasks and functions.
• Copilots built with this new category of capabilities can now independently manage complex, long-running business processes by leveraging memory and knowledge for context, reason over actions and inputs, learn based on user feedback and ask for help when they encounter situations that they don’t know how to handle.
• Users can now put Copilot to work for them – from IT device procurement to customer concierge for sales and service.

GitHub now has its first set of Copilot extensions

• GitHub (a Microsoft-owned platform) now has the first set of GitHub Copilot extensions, developed by Microsoft and third-party partners, in private preview.
• They allow developers and organizations to customize their GitHub Copilot experience with their preferred services like Azure, Docker, Sentry and more directly within GitHub Copilot Chat.
• Using GitHub Copilot for Azure, one of the extensions from Microsoft, developers can explore and manage Azure resources using natural language, while also troubleshooting issues and locating relevant logs and code.

Microsoft introduces Team Copilot

• Team Copilot is expanding Copilot beyond a personal assistant to work on behalf of a team, improving collaboration and project management. You will be able to invoke Copilot where you collaborate – in Teams, Loop, Planner and more.
• Team Copilot can be a meeting facilitator in meetings, managing the agenda, tracking time and taking notes. It can act as a collaborator in chats by surfacing important information, tracking action items and addressing unresolved issues. It can serve as a project manager to help ensure every project runs smoothly and notify the team when their input is needed. These initial experiences, coming in preview later this year, will enable us to learn, iterate and refine as we enter a new phase of innovation where Copilot begins to take more action on behalf of individuals and teams.

GPT-40 now available in Azure AI Studio

• GPT-4o, OpenAI’s newest flagship model, is now available in Azure AI Studio and as an API. This groundbreaking multimodal model integrates text, image and audio processing to set a new standard for generative and conversational AI experiences.

K-12 U.S. educators empowered by AI

• Microsoft is partnering Khan Academy to offer all K-12 U.S. educators free access to Khanmigo for Teachers, an AI-powered teaching assistant that frees up teachers’ time so they can focus on what matters most – engaging with and supporting their students.
• The software company is also donating access to Azure AI-optimized infrastructure to increase the availability of Khanmigo for Teachers, which will now be powered by Azure OpenAI Service.
• Khan Academy is collaborating with Microsoft to explore opportunities to improve math tutoring in an affordable, scalable and adaptable manner with a new version of Phi-3, a family of SLMs developed by Microsoft.
• They also plan to bring more Khan Academy content into Copilot and Teams for Education, expanding resources for learners.

Follow Techloy's coverage of Microsoft Build 2024 from our editorial team.