According to a study by IDC, 92% of enterprises are actively leveraging AI technologies to enhance productivity, customer engagement, revenue growth, cost management, and product innovation across multiple key areas. This study was commissioned by Microsoft and titled 'The Business Opportunities of AI'. The report shows that as enterprises invest in AI, their return on investment (ROI) significantly improves. The research indicates that the adoption of generative AI is rapidly expanding, expected to rise from 55% in 2023 to 75% in 2024. Currently, businesses are...

Microsoft recently announced the launch of a series of artificial intelligence (AI) models specifically designed for the manufacturing, agriculture, and financial services sectors. These models have been developed in collaboration with renowned companies such as Siemens, Bayer, and Rockwell Automation, aiming to integrate advanced AI technology into industries that have long relied on traditional methods. The newly launched dedicated models are now available in Microsoft's Azure AI catalog, marking a significant step for Microsoft in developing AI tools that meet the unique needs of different industries. This initiative reflects Microsoft's commitment to advancing.

The current tech industry mainly relies on the boom of artificial intelligence (AI) to mask its overall sluggish condition, with many companies continuing to struggle amid economic downturns. Traditional tech sectors, such as software, IT consulting, and companies providing electronic devices for manufacturing and the automotive industry, face problems of weak demand and excess inventory, making recovery difficult. While AI has become the sole growth point, the aftermath of overhiring and excessive spending, coupled with economic uncertainty, has increased the difficulty of recovery. Large tech companies are experiencing a slowdown in growth, and small businesses in the tech sector are particularly facing weak revenue growth. Although AI is the current highlight,

Microsoft collaborates with the anti-revenge pornography organization StopNCII to provide victims with tools to erase deepfake pornographic images from search engines. By creating a digital fingerprint (hash value) of the images on the device, it helps to completely remove related synthetic nude images from platforms like Bing. This initiative aims to address the issue of deepfake pornography caused by the misuse of generative AI technology, tackling the challenges that cannot be effectively managed solely through user reports. However, Google has not yet partnered with StopNCII, and there is a lack of specific federal laws addressing such behavior in the United States.

The 2024 annual work trends report released by Microsoft and LinkedIn shows that employers' preferences are shifting towards candidates with AI skills rather than those with extensive industry experience. 71% of corporate executives are inclined to hire job seekers with AI capabilities, but only 25% of companies plan to offer AI training, leading to 75% of knowledge workers learning AI tools on their own. With work pressure intensifying, 46% of employees consider resigning, and 45% worry that AI will replace their jobs. AI is reshaping the workplace, requiring professionals to actively learn and adapt.

Microsoft plans to introduce the 'Smart Media Search' feature in Windows 11, allowing users to search for indexed local video or audio files using voice commands. This feature requires user consent to scan media files on the device and will download and install AI models in the background for transcription and indexing. The feature is still in development, and the AI models may require dedicated neural processing units for calculations. It remains unclear whether users can select specific files for search, raising privacy concerns due to the AI's comprehensive scanning of media content. If selective processing is allowed for users, this feature...

Tong Xin, a former global research partner at Microsoft, has concluded his 25-year research career at Microsoft Research Asia as a leading figure in the field of graphics. He has joined the newly established AGI startup Anuttacon as Chief Researcher. Anuttacon focuses on exploring the boundaries of AGI and creating virtual world experiences using AI technology, currently operating in both Singapore and the San Francisco Bay Area. Tong Xin's addition, along with former Bilibili Vice President Wang Yuyang serving as Chief User Ecosystem Officer, brings a strong technological background and rich industry experience to the company.

Microsoft has released three new AI models aimed at enhancing its leadership in the multilingual and multimodal fields. The Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct is a lightweight model suitable for task execution, code generation, and logical reasoning, excelling particularly in multilingual and multi-turn conversations. The Phi-3.5 MoE (Mixture of Experts) model is rich in parameters and supports various inference tasks, especially outperforming peers in code, mathematics, and multilingual understanding. The Phi-3.5 Vision Instruct integrates text and image processing capabilities.

The water consumption of data centers has skyrocketed, especially in Virginia, where it has nearly doubled from 2019 to 2023, reflecting a significant global demand for water resources. The water usage by tech giants Microsoft and Google indicates that substantial amounts of water are being consumed in areas facing water scarcity and extreme shortages. However, data centers struggle to implement closed-loop water recycling systems mainly because the water used for humidity control evaporates, particularly in dry regions, which may increase static electricity risks and be detrimental to equipment. As artificial intelligence becomes more widespread, the number of data centers and the demand for water resources continues to grow.

The academic community is currently facing a controversy over data usage rights, as many academic publishers begin to package and sell research paper data to technology companies for training AI models. This action has sparked widespread discussion. Deals between Taylor and Francis and Microsoft, as well as Wiley and another company, have led to academic achievements being used to enhance AI systems. This practice has caused waves in the research community. Experts point out that once papers are used for training, it is difficult to remove them later, and the widespread acquisition of datasets enables AI models to learn and generate high-quality text.

Microsoft released a report indicating that Iran is utilizing cyber influence operations and generative artificial intelligence to control the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Activities have increased since June, including online reconnaissance, infiltrating online crowds, and websites. The report mentions that several Iranian organizations are involved, such as 'Sefid Flood', which creates chaos by impersonating social and political activists to undermine public trust in authorities; the 'Mint Sandstorm' organization conducts phishing attacks. Additionally, the 'Storm-2035' network operates fake news websites.

Australian telecom company Telstra and tech giant Microsoft have announced a deepening of their strategic partnership to promote AI innovation and digital transformation in Australia. The two companies will combine Microsoft's advanced AI technologies with Telstra's ultra-fast intercity fiber network, aiming to enhance the AI ecosystem and accelerate the digital transition. Microsoft sees Telstra as a strategic partner in expanding AI infrastructure in Australia, while Telstra's new fiber network will support Microsoft's infrastructure needs.

Palantir Technologies has entered into a partnership with Microsoft to provide secure cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and analytical capabilities to support the missions of defense and intelligence agencies of the U.S. government. This news resulted in an 11% increase in Palantir's stock price, and Microsoft's stock also saw an uptick. The collaboration allows the U.S. government to leverage Azure OpenAI services to access large language models, Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, and Palantir's AI platform.

Avanade conducted a seven-week pilot study with 700 employees to evaluate the impact of Microsoft's generative AI tool, Copilot for Microsoft 365, on work experience, including communication, creativity, trust, job satisfaction, sense of belonging, and organizational citizenship behavior. Initially, 72% of employees felt uneasy about Copilot's meeting transcription feature, but after six weeks of usage, 46% became more comfortable. Overall scores for creativity and innovation improved by 2%.

Microsoft and GitHub have announced a deep collaboration aimed at simplifying the AI application development process, making it easier for 100 million developers worldwide to build AI applications on the GitHub platform. With the seamless integration of Codespaces and Visual Studio Code on GitHub.com, developers can directly use Azure AI services, including access to leading AI model libraries, direct access to Azure AI through GitHub Models, and harnessing the power of Azure AI.

Microsoft, in its annual report to the SEC, has classified OpenAI as a 'competitor' for the first time, despite their close investment relationship worth $13 billion. This move may indicate a shift in their relationship and responds to the FTC's antitrust investigation into Microsoft's investments in AI startups. The dual role of collaboration and competition between Microsoft and OpenAI highlights the complexity and volatility of relationships i....

For the first time in its annual 10-K report, Microsoft listed OpenAI as a competitor, raising industry concerns about the potential changes in their partnership. Microsoft has a long-standing collaboration with OpenAI, investing $13 billion and providing exclusive cloud services. However, OpenAI's SearchGPT feature positions it as a potential competitor to Microsoft in the search domain. An ongoing U.S. antitrust investigation may impact their relationship. Microsoft's decision to relinquish its observer seat on OpenAI's board suggests possible changes in their partnership. However, experts point out that partners and competitors often coexist in the tech industry.

TikTok pays Microsoft nearly $20 million monthly to access OpenAI's artificial intelligence models via Microsoft's cloud services, bringing approximately $1 billion in annual revenue to Microsoft's cloud division and highlighting the value of AI services in the tech industry. Should TikTok develop its own large language model, it may reduce its reliance on Microsoft's services. OpenAI previously suspended ByteDance's account to investigate whether it violated developer agreements. As OpenAI's exclusive cloud service provider, Microsoft has invested significant resources to support its models, such as ChatGPT.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman announced plans to establish paid data usage agreements with tech companies in response to collaborations with Google and OpenAI. He criticized companies like Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity for refusing negotiations, forcing Reddit to block these firms. To protect data, Reddit has limited web crawler access and updated its robots.txt file to prevent uncontracted crawlers. This has resulted in Reddit content disappea....

Microsoft Vice Chairman Brad Smith urged the U.S. Congress to implement laws targeting AI-generated deepfake technology to protect citizens from fraud and manipulation. He pointed out that while the industry and nonprofit organizations have taken measures to address this issue, laws need to be updated to combat deepfake fraud. Smith emphasized the need for a comprehensive 'Deepfake Fraud Act' to provide a legal framework for law enforcement to prosecute cybercriminals who exploit the technology for fraud. He also called for updating laws concerning child sexual abuse and non-consensual intimate images to include those generated by AI.