Microsoft recently hosted its annual partner conference, Inspire. This is an important event to follow because it highlights the areas that Microsoft will focus on in the coming year, and it’s a time when new available tools and products are announced. For company leaders, the conference offers opportunities for growth, connections, and the chance to be early adopters of emerging trends. Here’s a rundown of the top news from Microsoft Inspire 2023 and how you can take advantage of these new transformative tools.
New AI Announcements
This year’s conference was especially relevant and engaging given the recent developments in AI, which was a central focal point at the event. Microsoft knows that AI will be revolutionizing every industry and certainly plans to be a leader in that global transformation. The event offered several ways that organizations can get started using AI in their business, as well as opportunities for companies to go deeper and wider with initiatives that they may already have in place. These are some big announcements of AI solutions you’ll be able to use that can drastically improve productivity and propel your business forward:
Bing Chat Enterprise
Company teams can now use Bing Chat securely from within their Microsoft environment, included at no extra cost (in preview for now) with Microsoft 365 E5, E3, Business Premium, or Business Standard licenses. Those without one of these licenses will soon have the option to purchase Bing Chat Enterprise as an independent subscription at $5/user/month.
If you’ve tried out Bing Chat, you know how amazingly helpful it can be. And to address privacy concerns, Microsoft has incorporated commercial data protection ensuring that user data is not commingled with web data, used for AI model training, or even shared with Microsoft itself.
Copilot Pricing
The AI assistant Microsoft 365 Copilot has been big news, and many have wondered how much it will cost. Pricing was announced at the conference: $30/user/month. This includes AI chat and assistance embedded into Microsoft 365 applications: ask your Copilot to do a task for you, and your wish is its command. To add faster responses, access during peak times, and priority access to new features, companies can purchase ChatGPT Plus on top of Copilot for an additional $20/user/month.
These prices aren’t cheap, so it’s recommended that organizations carefully plan out their Copilot investments, looking at ROI and how many licenses they will need. Contact us to help you formulate the most cost-effective plan and make sure you get the most return out of a Copilot purchase.
New Copilot Applications: Security and Sales
Microsoft also announced new integrations of OpenAI’s latest generative AI model, GPT-4, into Copilot for specific types of teams. A “security-specific model” called Microsoft Security Copilot provides IT teams with the power of AI to defend against today’s ever more sophisticated cyberattacks. And a new Sales Copilot embeds AI functionality along with data from Salesforce, Dynamics 365, or other platforms into Microsoft 365—making for an intelligent, streamlined, and productive experience for sales teams.
Llama 2 Added to Azure AI
Azure AI is known to have made use of OpenAI’s GPT-4 model following Microsoft’s partnership with the popular AI developer. Now Microsoft is also adding Meta’s open-source Llama 2 model to Azure and Windows, bringing more varied options to its AI toolbox.
Partnership Announcements
Another ongoing theme of the Inspire event is collaboration. Microsoft is very supportive of partnerships, and indeed that’s what drives this network-oriented conference. Here are a couple partnership highlights announced:
Collaboration with Epic Systems
One of Microsoft’s new strategic partnerships is with the healthcare software company Epic Systems. Microsoft will be integrating its Azure OpenAI Service into the electronic health record software at Epic—a move that will modernize the environment in a whole new way and make incredible gains in healthcare efficiency. This is a great example of an industry that can make huge advancements with AI and a company that is strategically collaborating with Microsoft to lead in that transformation.
New AI Cloud Partner Program
Likewise, Microsoft works with partner companies to provide opportunities to excel through connection and collaboration. Microsoft Inspire 2023 announced its newest partnership evolution, the AI Cloud Partner Program. It brings together the entire partnership lifecycle and helps deliver the most customer value, now with the integration of AI. With Microsoft’s breadth and enormous resource base, partners have been able to do amazing things, and this new partner program offers enormous potential for organizations to get involved at this exciting time.
How Can You Make Use of New Opportunities Announced at Microsoft Inspire 2023?
Like Microsoft, we believe in the power of partnership. When companies with unique strengths, connections and resources work together, they compound their reach and achieve goals that could never have been possible alone. Set up a meeting with us to find out more how about how you can benefit from collaboration and Inspire’s announcements:
- Find out how to coach your staff to use AI chat the most effectively, and ensure that you are licensed with the best plan for your specific organization
- Get expert advice on new investments like Copilot, calculating return on investment (ROI) and identifying optimal licensing
- Learn more about Copilot for your industry and utilize it to become a leader in your field
- Discover how to get the best use of capabilities from multiple generative AI models
- Use collaboration and partnership to improve your company’s security and achieve higher goals
- Build a strategic innovation plan powered by today’s AI possibilities
- Ensure that your AI adoptions are safe, secure, and responsibly leveraged
Advancements in AI are moving rapidly, and Infused Innovations continues to be at the forefront of this revolutionary development. Don’t miss the opportunity to transform your company—and even your industry—with the incredible tools available today. Let us help your business navigate the path forward!
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