October 2024

It’s been a busy time at Microsoft, and we’ve been hard at work on initiatives that align with our highest priorities and values. We’ve got a slew of updates that we’re excited to share with you.

This month, we’ll tell you about a smorgasbord of new AI features designed to support you at work and beyond. We’ll explore Copilot capabilities that make it easier to collaborate and create, and new experiences for Copilot+ PCs and Windows 11 that streamline everyday tasks.

And we’ll highlight two reports on what we’re doing to safeguard your data, and advance Microsoft’s commitment to inclusion and diversity.

Copilot has rapidly transformed how we work, and now we’ve updated Copilot for consumers to make it more personable and intuitive. With Copilot Voice, you can chat with your AI companion and ask it questions, and Copilot will respond in one of four voice options you can choose from.

Copilot Pages provides a new way to collaborate with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Pages lets you bring information from Copilot queries and your work data into a space where you can collaborate with colleagues. You can share a link to the page, then tag others who can edit and iterate together directly in that space. 

We also introduced new Copilot features in Microsoft 365 apps. Copilot can now help manage your Outlook inbox, access content to draft Word docs, integrate with Python in Excel for advanced data analysis and build powerful, on-brand narratives in PowerPoint. To help cut down on manual work, we launched Copilot agents that can automate tasks like sending emails or creating support tickets.

Last month, we told you about Copilot+ PCs, the fastest and most intelligent Windows PCs to date. This month, we announced new experiences for Copilot+ PCs and Windows 11 to streamline tasks and make your PC more useful.

An improved Windows search lets you find documents or photos using your own words – no need to remember file names or locations. Also new is Click to Do, which puts an interactive overlay on your PC screen at your request with suggested actions you can apply to text, images or videos. And super resolution in Photos transforms your low-resolution images into crisp new versions of themselves.

Underpinning these new capabilities is a heightened focus on security. Since launching our Secure Future Initiative in November 2023, we’ve dedicated the equivalent of 34,000 full-time engineers to the effort. We appointed 13 deputy chief information security officers and our senior leadership team reviews security progress weekly, among other updates detailed in a progress report.

We’ve also retooled Recall to improve its security and make the screenshot feature an opt-in experience.

Though security is our top priority, people are always at the heart of what we do. Our recently announced 2024 Global Diversity & Inclusion Report details our progress in fostering a culture of inclusion in which every employee can thrive. Representation of women and most racial and ethnic minority groups has increased at all levels over the past five years, and employees increasingly believe Microsoft is committed to creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

By inviting in a wide range of experiences, perspectives and skills, we enable a workforce that can best innovate the solutions, services, products and ways of working that allow us to be relevant and competitive today — and in the future.

Scoring points for getting healthy

Adriemilly Rigo was tired, felt poorly and knew she wasn’t taking good care of herself.

A diagnosis of fatty liver disease scared her into taking action. Through her employer, Rigo signed up for RadarFit, a generative AI-powered health and wellness app that uses gamification to incentivize healthy habits. Users get points for workouts and healthy meals, which can be redeemed for products, and personalized recommendations tailored to their health goals.

RadarFit, which runs on Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, was launched in 2020 by three female entrepreneurs in Brazil and has attracted more than a million users. The startup is focused primarily on corporate customers, with the goal of helping promote employee wellness and reducing health-related costs.

Rigo began following the app’s meal guidance and exercising more often, and these days feels better than she has in a long time. “It’s been wonderful for me,” she says. “Now I challenge myself more and more every day.” 

Water, water everywhere

Drinking water is essential for human survival. But in some parts of the world, up to 70% of piped drinking water is lost to leaking pipes.

U.K.-based FIDO Tech is helping stanch the flow. The company, which Microsoft is collaborating with as part of its water replenishment commitment, developed an AI tool that identifies where leaks are and ranks them by size. FIDO’s technology takes acoustic files from mobile sensors placed on water pipeline networks and applies AI to determine whether the sound signifies a leak.

The tool can differentiate between the sound of a leak and environmental noise like machinery operating nearby. And it works with plastic pipes, in which leaks don’t resonate like they do in metal pipes, a detection problem that has long vexed utilities. 

“The largest leaks are the quietest,” says Victoria Edwards, CEO and co-founder of FIDO. “The human ear cannot hear them – especially in a plastic pipe.”

Golden Record 2.0

As high school student Dexter Greene researched storage methods for an updated version of the Golden Record, a time capsule launched into space in 1977, he had a bold thought: He would reach out to Richard Black, who leads Microsoft’s Project Silica effort, with a faint hope of learning about the groundbreaking technology that stores data in glass.

“I was kind of stunned when he responded,” says Greene, 18. “I was like, there’s no way this researcher at Microsoft is going to respond to this high school student that he’s never met.”

Greene and a team of students are now working to create a modern version of the Golden Record using Project Silica, including sounds and images aimed at telling extraterrestrials about life on Earth. With data from Greene’s team, Black wrote two small glass “platters” that have the durability to keep the data intact as it travels through space.

Whether or not Golden Record 2.0 ever makes it into alien hands, the collaborators see the project as worthwhile.

“Encouraging humanity to reflect on itself – where we are, the challenges ahead for us as a species here on planet Earth – this is a good time to think those thoughts,” Black says.

We couldn’t agree more. Here’s to reflecting – and reaching for the stars.

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