According to Bhaskar Basu from Microsoft India, AI is increasing organisational efficiency and employee engagement.

Bhaskar Basu spoke exclusively with Indianexpress.com about Microsoft 365, AI, and how it affects workplace efficiency.

The term du jour is artificial intelligence. The IT giant Microsoft has incorporated AI into a number of tools that are crucial for organisational growth, even as businesses all over the world adopt various AI-backed technologies. Millions of professionals worldwide may use these technologies to plan their work more effectively and increase productivity.

Microsoft recently unveiled its Copilot in Microsoft Viva and Microsoft Viva Glint, two AI-powered solutions designed to help businesses develop more "engaged and productive" workforces. Viva uses next-generation AI to boost productivity, engagement, and performance. With AI, Microsoft not only increases productivity but also provides a platform for managers and staff to interact more deeply..

Bhaskar Basu, Country Head - Modern Work, Microsoft India, was recently contacted by the indianexpress.com. Basu spoke extensively on how AI is impacting the workplace and shared some views on the Viva Copilot in light of Microsoft's most recent announcements.

What do you mean by AI as a Copilot and what do you think about the momentum towards AI?

There is a great deal of interest, anticipation, and desire to understand the generative AI developments and technology. We've heard of Dall-E, ChatGPT, Viva, Microsoft Copilot, and other apps. I am quite thrilled about where we are right now, and I firmly believe that the computing industry is entering a whole new age. There has been a lot of discussion over the development of what are known as "powerful new foundation models" and usable natural language interfaces. Indeed, the current state of AI is fascinating.

According to a Microsoft research, 90% of CEOs want to hire employees who have knowledge of AI.

It seems clear that we are moving from autopilot to copilot mode with the current generation of AI. Here, I compare the phrase "copilot" to an aeroplane. In this comparison, the pilot directs, navigates, manages takeoff and landing, and charts the path. The safe transportation of passengers from point A to point B is the pilot's primary responsibility. The purpose of an AI copilot is to serve as a companion, relieve the pilot of the stress of repeated chores, and develop into an ally. The copilot's responsibility is to assist the pilot in attaining their overall goals, strategy, and vision. As a result, the term "copilot" refers to the idea of an AI ally.

What direction has AI taken at Microsoft?

Microsoft has long been an AI firm, and most recently, we made important strategic investments to improve our copilot capabilities. Along with Viva, we also debuted a number of other products, including Azure Open AI Services, GitHub Copilot, Dynamics 365 Copilot, security copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. These programmes combine a number of technologies, such as deep learning, digital twins, cognitive services, and machine learning. Our objective is to integrate generative AI capabilities into numerous consumer and business goods, simplifying lives and releasing creativity, productivity, and overall potential. We are ecstatic about the opportunities and anxious to push the limits of what AI is capable of. We are at an amazing period right now.

What role do you believe Microsoft 365 will play in removing tiresome and repetitive chores so that employees may spend more time on productive work?

We are an extremely productive company, and Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Teams, etc. are essential to maximising production. In the last ten years, we have incorporated AI capabilities such as voice prompts in Outlook and predictive answers in Teams. The launch of the M365 copilot, which seeks to rethink the productivity experience by harnessing human language, marked the turning point for core productivity. A Large Language Model (LLM) that can analyse natural language is combined with the Microsoft 365 applications, the Microsoft Graph (which saves contextual signals), and the copilot.

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The copilot system interprets your instructions, follows privacy and security guidelines, and produces streamlined replies to improve work completion. Through content compression, document conversion, and text-to-image generation, this copilot method streamlines productivity. It's a fusion of applications, the Microsoft Graph, and the LLM that offers text that is simple to act with. The copilot for Microsoft 365 is this.

Cortana, Microsoft's vivacious voice assistant, is leaving Windows shortly.

 Cortana leaves off, and Microsoft's new Windows Copilot continues where she left off.

Cortana on Windows will no longer be supported by Microsoft. The app will be discontinued starting later this year, according to a support article released on Friday. You presumably haven't used it since it was initially offered.

The information comes after Microsoft's new Windows Copilot tool was introduced at its annual Build conference. The gadget, which resides on the taskbar below, is said to be able to do all of Cortana's functions once it is widely available. This entails altering preferences, summarising information, responding to inquiries, and more.

It was inevitable that Cortana would fail. The AI assistant, which debuted with Windows Phone 8.1 in 2014, emerged on desktop with Windows 10 and quickly appeared in all applications, including Office.

Top breakthroughs in Microsoft Build 2023 include AI advances on Edge and Bing for ChatGPT.

Microsoft began phasing down Cortana over time as a result of Cortana's failure to gain popularity, though. After Windows 11 was released, the assistant was no longer prominently displayed on the taskbar and could only be used as a standalone application. Additionally, Microsoft discontinued the app for iOS and Android in 2020.

The exact date that Cortana will be removed from Windows is not yet known. However, Microsoft encourages customers to test out some of the other tools, such as Windows 11's Voice access, the new Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Windows Copilot.

Cortana will still be available on other platforms including Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams display, and Microsoft Teams rooms, the firm has further emphasised.

Using AI, everyone can now be a programmer, according to the CEO of Nvidia.

 As a significant provider of chips and computer systems for artificial intelligence, Nvidia has soared to become the most valuable listed semiconductor firm in the world.

According to Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang, artificial intelligence implies that anybody can now programme computers since all they need to do is speak to them. Huang hailed the closing of the "digital divide" in his remarks on Monday.

As a significant provider of chips and computer systems for artificial intelligence, Nvidia has soared to become the most valuable listed semiconductor firm in the world.

The business last week predicted second-quarter sales to exceed Wall Street projections by more than 50% and announced it was increasing supply to keep up with rising demand for its artificial intelligence chips, which enable ChatGPT and several other services similar to it.

Huang, who was born in southern Taiwan before his family immigrated to the United States when he was a young boy, claimed AI was driving a revolution in computing while addressing thousands of attendees at the Computex convention in Taipei.

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He declared in a speech that "there's no doubt we're in a new computing era," sprinkling Mandarin or Taiwanese terms here and there to the amusement of the audience.

Artificial intelligence most certainly qualifies since "every single computing era you could do different things that weren't possible before," Huang continued.

The learning curve for programming is really low. The digital divide has been eliminated. You only need to speak to the computer now to become a coder, he added.

He declared in a speech that "there's no doubt we're in a new computing era," sprinkling Mandarin or Taiwanese terms here and there to the amusement of the audience.

Artificial intelligence most certainly qualifies since "every single computing era you could do different things that weren't possible before," Huang continued.

The learning curve for programming is really low. The digital divide has been eliminated. You only need to speak to the computer now to become a coder, he added.

Google launches AI search tools for a small number of US users, but India could have to wait

Google launched Search Generative Experience (SGE) earlier this month. This new collection of features uses generative AI to improve Search.

Search Labs, Google’s new platform for experimenting with search features, is now inviting select users to try its revamped search engine powered by generative AI. It is still guarded by a waitlist. However, two weeks following its launch at the I/O 2023 event, at least some users are starting to get access now.

In case you missed it, Google introduced Search Generative Experience (SGE) earlier this month. This new collection of capabilities uses generative AI to improve Search. One of these options is AI-generated summaries, which place a succinct summary of the subject above the standard blue links in the search results.

By asking follow-up questions or selecting from the suggested activities, users may engage with the AI and learn more. In order for users to confirm the authenticity of the data and learn how the AI chose the sites for review, the AI also offers links to the information's original sources. They may utilise SGE to find a variety of goods and topics to think about when purchasing.

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In addition to SGE, Labs currently include a couple of other features. One is Add to Sheets, which adds a button to every link in your search results allowing you to quickly add links to a sheet of your choice. The second is Code Tips, an AI-powered solution built specifically to help you write and fix code.

With these new generative AI features, Google, which holds around 90% of the worldwide search engine market, has the potential to revolutionise the search and SEO sectors. Websites and businesses may compete to be featured in the AI summary rather than the links that will be pushed down below if AI summarization becomes popular.

You can no longer allow OpenAI to train ChatGPT using your talk history.

 According to OpenAI, ChatGPT now has a new feature that allows users to prevent the chat history that OpenAI uses to train the chat bot from being saved.

• A new 'Incognito mode' has been added to ChatGPT.

• The ability to save a user's conversation history has been restricted in ChatGPT.

• Additionally, ChatGPT is developing a business subscription.

Since ChatGPT's debut in November of last year, OpenAI has continually released updates to the AI chat bot to make it smarter. It has been the talk of the town. Although some users might not appreciate it, it also informs users that ChatGPT is trained using their conversations with the chat bot. In order to enable OpenAI use the conversation history for training, OpenAI has released a feature that allows you to stop ChatGPT from keeping the chat history.

OpenAI announced that it has given ChatGPT users the option to disable conversation history in a blog post. When chat history is blocked, conversations cannot be utilised to train or enhance the company's models and are not displayed in the history sidebar. These options are available in ChatGPT's settings and may be modified at any time. They are already being rolled out to all users.

According to OpenAI, this was done to make managing your data and the opt-out procedure simpler than it was before. However, it also states that if chat history is deactivated, new discussions will be kept for 30 days and reviewed only as often as necessary to check for abuse before being permanently deleted.

For those who are unaware, certain nations, like Spain and France, have begun investigating the site, while Italy banned it last month on privacy-related worries. OpenAI was notified that if it gave users greater means to control their data, it might restart offering services in the area.

Additionally, ChatGPT is developing a business subscription.

There will soon be a new ChatGPT Business subscription available for both companies looking to manage their end users' endpoints and professionals who require more control over their data. Data from end users won't be automatically utilised to train ChatGPT Business's models since it will abide by the company's data usage regulations for its API. In the upcoming months, we want to make ChatGPT Business available, according to OpenAI.

Last but not least, a new Export option has been introduced to the settings to make it simpler to export your ChatGPT data and comprehend what data ChatGPT holds. If users want to export the data, they will get an email with a file including all of their discussions and other pertinent information.