Microsoft Build 2024 LIVE — all the latest Windows 11 and Copilot news after huge Surface launch

Jha shows various ways to use Copilot. This is the usual kind of AI demo we’ve seen plenty of times before. Copilot scans Jha’s conversation and creates a summary. It also helps him create a document to present to his team.

Rajesh Jha, EVP of Experiences, now takes the stage. He and other presenters will discuss different aspect of AI Copilot.

Jha speaks about how AI has been incorporated into Microsoft 365 apps. Many companies are also making use of Copilot. Over 150 Copilot have been added since the beginning of 2024. There’s also a standalone Copilot app for everyday users.

Nadella leaves the stage and we see a sizzle reel of how audio descriptions can help those with disabilities. This is one of the more benevolent uses of AI and it’s good to see Microsoft highlight this aspect.

Nadella is now talking about security, which is a big concern when it comes to AI.

More Microsoft Copilot updates. Nadella talks up how the company’s AI companion has helped enterprise since it launched. Microsoft Copilot connectors allows companies to connect numerous disperate applications.

Team Copilot has been announced. This will work in Teams and other Microsoft programs. It can facilitate meetings, take notes, write chats, gather information, address issues, and even act as a project manager. 

Developers can build a Copilot from the ground up or from a series of templates. This should help devs and organizations create a Copilot agent for their specific business.

Neha Batra VP of Engineering takes the stage to demonstrate GitHub Copilot. She speaks in Spanish and gets answers to her coding question in real time. Impressive!

More talk about developer tools, which is Microsoft’s forte. Again, this is likely above most of your heads (it’s certainly above my paygrade), but the developers in the audience seem excited.

Real-time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric. There’s a lot here to sort through, but suffice it to say it’s yet another AI tool made to help developers and organizations ease their workload. Admittedly, this isn’t something regular folks need to worry about.

Azure AI studio is now available to all developers.

A video of how AI can help teachers make classes more engaging through Khan Academy. This should help give students a personal tutor and teachers a personal assistant. This is possible via the Phi platform. And since this is a small AI platform, it will cost less — which should make it affordable to schools.

OpenAI created ChatGPT-40 and Microsoft is opening it up to devs. This will make it an AI agent too. Very interesting!

Microsoft is also adding more models to Phi-3 with expanded parameters. It can work via the cloud or locally on a machine.

Next up we have a demo of a person asking AI the best products to use for camping. This is standard fare for AI, but obviously, instead of typing in questions, you can ask it questions with your voice. The presentation showed the user change his language and the AI kept up, which is pretty cool.

We now see a demo of AI giving a player pointers on how to play Minecraft. Instead of looking up a YouTube video, you’ll be able to have AI guide you. I’m not sure how I feel about this as a long-time gamer raised on GameFAQs. But I guess this could be a modern version of old game guides!

Nadella talks about Azure AI. Apparently, over 50,000 organizations use the program. ChatGPT-4o was trained on Azure, which is pretty interesting. Microsoft really does have its hands into many AI pies!

Microsoft also plans to use AMD’s ND MI300X V5 hardware to fuel its AI ambitions. The company isn’t leaving Team Red behind!

Nadella talks about Microsoft’s partnership with Nvidia, which apparently forms the core of Microsoft’s AI ambitions. The companies are utilizing LLMs like ChatGPT and others to incorporate them natively into machines.

Nadella talks up AI infrastructure.

Azure is available in 60+ regions. The company has expanded it to even more regions than ever, with the promise to deliver cloud service sustainability.

Some of this might be a bit over the heads of regular folks. But suffice it to say that if developers can create applications that help you life easier, then we all win.

PyTorch and Web Neural Network will now run natively on Windows. That should give developers even more tools to make use of. A processor’s NPU should help these tools perform faster than ever.

Moving on to discuss Copilot+ PC. The idea is to make Windows the best platform to build AI applications. A host of Copilot Library tools will be available to developers. This includes Phi-Silica, which can run on-device. 

Nadella talks about the possible avenues that AI can open for people around the world. According to him, developers are excited over the prospect of AI-driven technologies. He thanks them for the impact their progress is having on the world.

Nadella talks about what drives progress in computers. We used to have Moore’s Law, but things seem to have scaled faster than even Moore could have predicted.

Satya Nadella takes the stage to usher in Microsoft Build!

Like the intro, Microsoft’s CEO talks about Microsoft’s past and how that is informing its future. Even if the mission statement remains the same, we now have new tools to make people’s lives easier. That’s the promise of AI.

Microsoft Build 2024 officially kicks off! The event starts with a look at Microsoft’s past and leads into its present/future which will be focused on AI programs and tools. This can be seen as an extension of the company’s desire to bring people together.

Hey, all! Tony Polanco here to cover the main event! I’ll be with you for the next few hours to give you the latest news, so sit back and relax!

Five minutes to go…

Currently, we’re celebrating the Imagine Cup finalists — an amazing mix of creativity and accessible design, and the winner is… From Your Eyes!

Using vision AI, it is able to tell you in real-time what can be seen in front of you. Lovely stuff!

YouTube live translation and dubbing is coming to Microsoft Edge

Yes, I know Edge is that annoying browser pop up we get on the way to downloading Google Chrome. But Microsoft has been busy updating it significantly, including this great move in accessibility.

This new feature will offer real-time video translations to sites like YouTube, Linkedin and more — pretty much any site with on-site video. Translations include going from English to  44 languages. And yes, that includes both prerecorded and live videos.

What we have here is huge for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, and a big step forward in international audience for your content. 

Welcome back to Redmond

We’re just under 30 minutes away from the main event. Look forward to a ton of AI updates, Windows 11 features and more from Satya Nadella and co!

P.S. I can only wish I could pull off an alien dress like hers!

What was announced yesterday?

Let’s start by looking back. It was a busy day for Microsoft, as the company made a ton of hardware and software announcements.

Surface Pro 11: Looks like the Pro 10 is staying exclusive to the business people, and we’re getting the good stuff in the Surface Pro 11. This is the first Surface to give you an OLED display, and you can pick from either a Snapdragon X Plus or X Elite. Pricing starts at $999.

Surface Laptop 7: Alongside this, the Surface Laptop 7 is a more modest upgrade hardware-wise. You’re still getting the same display options as Laptop 6, and the same aluminum shell. The main difference is that Snapdragon choice.

Copilot+ PCs: These are only just two of what Microsoft is touting the new line of Copilot+ PCs — the next generation AI PCs. You can see more about what Asus, Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo have up their sleeves for this.