Key Highlights from Microsoft Build 2024

After last year’s successful in-person format, the Microsoft Build 2024 conference is back in Seattle and virtual—free for registered people—from May 21 to 23. The three-day event started with an in-person keynote from CEO Satya Nadella, followed by multiple online developer sessions.

Build 2024 is Microsoft’s focused event, engaging developers and professionals through deep-dive sessions related to the latest tools and features inside Windows 11 and Microsoft 365. This year’s conference promises many announcements and sessions on new AI capabilities, including the newly launched Recall feature.

Also Read: Informatica Announces Innovations to Revolutionize Data Management for AI

Microsoft Build 2024: Day 1 Highlights

The first day of Microsoft Build 2024 brings a host of major announcements centered around generative AI, data management, and enhanced security. Here are some key takeaways from Satya Nadella’s keynote address:

Copilot Studio: Microsoft announced new features in Copilot Studio, which now enable the creation of advanced copilots that act as agents to execute and orchestrate various business processes. By integrating Microsoft Graph, Power Platform, AI capabilities in Microsoft Fabric, and Dataverse, Copilot Studio simplifies the development of copilots that seamlessly interact with both proprietary and third-party data.

Azure AI Search: New features for Azure AI Search were announced for the creation of a state-of-the-art information retrieval system designed for enterprise-scale searches. Updates include:

• Scalable Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Improved relevance through vector enhancements and hybrid search.
• New data integrations and vectorization upgrades.
• OneLake connector for seamless archival integration.

Foundation Models and GPT-4o: Microsoft announced the general availability of GPT-4o, a multimodal model integrating text, vision, and audio capabilities. This model, available in Azure AI Studio and API, offers unprecedented customization for organizations to tailor AI outputs to their needs. In addition, the Assistants API was introduced to facilitate the development of advanced virtual assistants.

Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric: New Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric is a SaaS solution for handling large volumes of time-critical data. Features include:

• A Real-Time Hub for event management.
• Stream connectors for cross-cloud sources.
• Enhanced dashboards and data exploration tools.

AI-powered insights with integrated Microsoft Copilot for query generation and anomaly detection.

GitHub Copilot: New extensions for GitHub Copilot were launched, enabling customization with preferred services such as Azure, Docker, and Sentry. These extensions enhance workflow efficiency by allowing natural language interactions to be built and deployed in the cloud.

Copilot + PCs: The latest AI-equipped PCs come with NPUs to deliver 45 TOPS of computing. These devices call out to developers to create AI experiences with the benefits of low latency, cost efficiency, and better data privacy.

Phi-3 Vision: The early version of Phi-3 Vision, a model for multimodal visual reasoning tasks, was announced. This model will allow users to input images and text and output textual responses to enhance their understanding of charts, graphs, and tables.

Power Automate Updates: Power Automate innovations now use generative AI for process automation. Key updates include:

• Outcome-based automation using AI flows
• Enhanced desktop flows using a new recorder and natural language-to-flow conversion capabilities

New Virtual Machines: ND MI300X V5 and Azure Cobalt: Azure introduced virtual machines: ND MI300X v5, powered by AMD’s Instinct GPU, with high-bandwidth memory for exceptionally high performance. Additionally, it introduced the new Cobalt 100 Arm VMs optimized for AI and cloud-native workloads.

Microsoft Azure Infrastructure: Microsoft expanded its AI infrastructure with more than 60 data centers around the globe. It released Azure Compute Fleet to make it easier to provision across virtual machines and availability zones.

Enhanced Security with Microsoft Edge: Microsoft Edge has advanced defense mechanisms: screenshot blocking on sensitive pages and streamlined updating for IT administrators.

Responsible AI Enhancements: New tools like Prompt Shields and Groundedness Detection were announced for the safe use of AI. Features protect against prompt injection attacks and hallucinations in model output.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, appeared at Microsoft Build to discuss future plans. He joined Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott onstage to talk about upcoming developments for OpenAI and Microsoft’s supercomputer initiatives.

Also Read: Informatica Announces Innovations to Revolutionize Data Management for AI

Microsoft Build 2024: Day 2 Highlights

AI Innovations and Multimodal Capabilities: Microsoft is doubling down on AI with mini-multimodal models that take in multiple types of data for more advanced AI capabilities. It wants to put more AI agents to work across apps.

New Features in Microsoft Edge: Microsoft Edge now offers the ability to translate YouTube videos in real-time, making the web more accessible and user-friendly.

Enhancements in Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams have added custom emojis to the messaging space, allowing users to add a little flair to their interactions and, hopefully, improve communication in the process.

Hardware and Software Development

1. Tiny Snapdragon PC: Microsoft showed off the new tiny PC using Snapdragon to indicate a step forward for portable computers.
2. Microsoft File Explorer: File Explorer is now a Git repository so that developers will have it easier to version and collaborate on projects.
3. AI-Powered Clipboard in PowerToys: Windows rolled out AI-powered clipboard features in PowerToys to make users’ lives easier with smart clipboard management.

Gaming on Arm-Based Devices: Microsoft and Qualcomm launched WorksOnWoA.com, tracking the performance of games on Arm-based devices such as the Surface Laptop. The site lists games as “Perfect,” “Playable,” “Runs,” or “Unplayable” for gamers.

AI-Powered Call Management: Truecaller, in conjunction with Microsoft’s Azure AI Speech, will let users create an AI version of their voice to answer calls. This will enhance Truecaller’s spam-blocking capabilities by providing custom call responses.

FAQs

1. When did Microsoft hold its first annual Build Developer Conference?

Microsoft Build is the US tech giant’s annual developer conference, which first took place in 2011.

2. Who were the top exhibitors at Microsoft Build 2024?

AMD – Featured AMD Instinct MI300X AI accelerator with 1.5TB of high-bandwidth memory for each VM and 5.2TB/s of memory bandwidth

Intel – Intel and Microsoft partnership news at Build 2024 included the chipmaker validating and optimizing its AI portfolio across client, edge and data center for multiple Microsoft Phi-3 open small language models (SLMs).

Nvidia – AI performance optimizations and integrations for Windows meant to deliver high performance on Nvidia’s GeForce RTX AI PCs and RTX workstations.

Qualcomm – Exhibits brand-new Snapdragon X processors that enable advanced AI capabilities.

 Oracle – Oracle Database@Azure, which promises to simplify app and analytics development by putting Oracle workloads

Other exhibitors at Microsoft Build 2024 include Snowflake, MongoDB, F5, Fortinet, and Meta.

3. What is a Copilot Studio?

Copilot Studio and Dataverse enable organizations to effortlessly create actions, build knowledge, and integrate grounded data into their copilots, while also ensuring compliance through a robust set of security features.

4. How is Microsoft enhancing its AI and machine learning capabilities?

Enhancements include the introduction of GPT-4o, new AI-powered features in Microsoft Fabric, and expanded capabilities in GitHub Copilot and Power Automate.

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