“There are major platform shifts in the air
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella opens Ignite 2024
- Reveals a host of new Copilot announcements and upgrades
- Reaffirms Microsoft’s mission to empower the world through AI
Microsoft’s CEO has highlighted how the company’s Copilot AI platform will transform the way people at all levels can work effectively and productively, especially when it comes to AI agents.
During his opening keynote at Microsoft Ignite, Satya Nadella stated: “Copilot is the user interface for AI, it is quickly becoming an organizing layer for the work and the way the work is done… every employee will have a co-pilot who knows them and knows how he works. ”
“There are big platform shifts in the air,” he added, “this is what I live for.”
Copilot AI is being improved across the board
In an extensive keynote covering a host of new announcements and updates, Nadella introduces a number of Copilot-powered features for top Windows tools like Microsoft Teams, Outlook, PowerPoint and more.
Copilot will be “the end-to-end system for business transformation,” Nadella said, also unveiling upgrades to Copilot Agent Studio, which will allow users to create a new agent “in seconds” and integrate it into Copilot.
“Sometimes we see these agents as things that take a lot of effort to build,” Nadella said, highlighting how a range of customers had already built third-party agents, “but our view is that it should be as easy as creating a word document.”
Looking to the future of AI, Nadella, citing American philosophy professor John Haugland, noted: “The problem with artificial intelligence is that computers don’t care – but we do.”
“That’s what really grounds us,” he said, “amid all this rapid change, we remain grounded in our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, using this technology to create a to make a difference for themselves, for their teams and the world.”
“It’s not about technology for technology’s sake, it’s about translating it into real results,” Nadella added. “Its transformative power as it drives business growth, improves efficiency and operating leverage.”
“As we enter these middle innings of AI, it is up to us to enable human performance,” he added, “learning these skills will change people’s lives – and in fact it already has.”