Microsoft's Copilot Wave 2 Event and More

Hey Everyone,

Copilot Wave 2's event had some interesting previews in how software is getting more useful at scale.

Read their main blog on this here.

Watch videos on:

• Copilot Agents in Sharepoint

• Copilot Studio Agent Builder
• Copilot Pages
• Prioritize my Inbox in Outlook
• Python in Excel
• Narrative Builder in PowerPoint

Listen to the entire presentation: It's about 27 minutes.

It’s not usually in my job description to be aware of what Microsoft, the world’s first, second most valuable corporation is up to in AI. Yet Microsoft is doing a lot of important things recently as a business and I want to dial in on some of those. All of this impacts the future of AI, so read on.

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AI will add $19.9 trillion to global economy by 2030, IDC predicts.

~ Read more about this quote.

Also given the importance of Azure AI to the ecosystem and the absurd amount of Cloud credits they have likely given to OpenAI in their $13 Billion investment (more soon to be sure!), how is their Copilot Era doing? Microsoft’s role in the Generative AI movement has been pivotal. But how good are they themselves in the execution of their products around AI?

Copilot is Microsoft’s take on productivity-boosting generative AI and it’s really not clear how well they are executing or if it’s actually having the desired effect. I have a lot of respect for Microsoft Research and in particular what Microsoft Research Asia has done historically for China’s AI scene. Microsoft has been able to use its investment in AI to grow its Cloud business faster in pursuit of AWS on top of whatever revenue will result in their own GPT-4 based products (that was itself a first mover).

• Microsoft are the best technology company at using paid subscription SaaS revenue way before subscriptions became so popular and literally everywhere! They are such a diversified company and their many product updates in AI proves it.
• In a shocking move, Microsoft and BlackRock have formed a group to raise $100 billion to invest in AI data centers and power. The Global Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Investment Partnership is initially looking to raise $30 billion for new and existing data centers.
• As a stock, MSFT 0.00%↑ Microsoft importantly raised its quarterly dividend 10% and unveiled a new $60 billion stock-buyback program, matching the size of a repurchase plan three years ago. Microsoft’s stock is up 31% in the past year. Microsoft also hired Carolina Dybeck Happe as their new COO, a role they haven’t had for many years that they need in the complicated AI era. Microsoft has a market cap of $3.234 Trillion and it’s hard to put into words what a significant customer they are for Nvidia’s AI chips.

So about two day ago they had their event - Watch it here.

Microsoft 365 Copilot: Wave 2 | Microsoft September 2024 Event

• Microsoft announced a dozen Copilot-branded products powering various capabilities in Microsoft software and services, like summarizations in Microsoft Outlook and transcriptions in Microsoft Teams.
• Microsoft introduced Pages, Python in Excel, and agents. Read more.

"This is an entirely new work pattern – multiplayer, human to AI to human collaboration," Microsoft

• Microsoft Copilot now have pages. Copilot also drives Copilot Pages, an “embeddable digital canvas” where users can edit and share Copilot-originated content. Microsoft are also a gaming company, perhaps they want us to work with AI in a multi-player setting.

Some of their ideas around AI, work and productivity are actually innovative. I feel the same way about Zoom for that matter (like sending a clone of ourselves to a meeting).

While many of Microsoft’s customers actually prefer ChatGPT, it’s not by accident OpenAI are making many AI products, just like Microsoft. They are using a similar playbook that is clearly orchestrated around Microsoft’s own philosophy of diversification and SaaS dominance.

Microsoft’s execution in AI revolves around "Copilot Innovation" with so many different AI products, most of which are related to current products. Google has a similar strategy but some of their tools like NotebooksLM feel entirely useful. I might only be a monthly active user of Microsoft Copilot.

Here is the short version of the Event: in just 2:47: Web + Work + Pages

• Microsoft is trying to make itself an essential interface to access AI. Microsoft is also building many new datacenters in SE Asia and also expanding into the Middle East.
• Copilot Pro is $20 a month and has a number of features and unique aspects. Copilot Pro gives users access to generative AI functions across the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. They also get access to BizChat. Business Chat (BizChat) is the at the center of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Copilot helps you use Microsoft software products and do more in less time. So essentially as you might suspect in Word and OneNote, Copilot can write, edit, summarize, and generate text. Copilot in Excel and PowerPoint can turn natural language prompts into presentations and visualizations (optionally grounded in data from files and templates). And in Outlook, Copilot can help draft email responses with toggles for adjusting the length or tone.

The Rise of GAIIP

The $30B AI Data Center Investment Fund (that will scale to $100 B) includes BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners, Microsoft, and MGX on founding. If you realize how important datacenter expansion is and the AI chip market has been, this is just huge news. This has the potential to transform the energy sector and the entire semiconductor supply chain globally, as well as power the next generation of AI.

The companies are part of the Global Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Investment Partnership, or GAIIP, which was announced in a press release on September 17th, 2024.

The funds will be used to “make investments in new and expanded data centers to meet growing demand for computing power, as well as energy infrastructure to create new sources of power for these facilities.”

Microsoft also has Github Copilot, one of the most important AI coding tools that make software programmers more productive. Microsfot’s Q4 revenue increased 15% YOY. Microsoft also disclosed spending $19 billion on capital expenditures in the June quarter. As BigTech capex continues to rise, AI and datacenters, GPUs and the semiconductor industry are huge benefecaries as we have seen in the era of Nvidia.

Read the entire long version of this article here.