Microsoft recently unveiled some of the most exciting updates from its Build 2024 event, including Microsoft Copilot in Azure, Team Copilot, and Defender for Cloud. These updates aim to expand the company’s presence in the emerging GenAI market by giving developers more access and control in creating copilots, chatbots, and workflow automations.
Build 2024, which had about 200,000 registered attendees, featured over 300 sessions and demos. One significant announcement focused on Microsoft Fabric, an AI-powered analytics platform that can quadruple ROI with a payback period of fewer than six months.
Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella emphasized the importance of prioritizing security over new features following a cloud email breach in 2023. The company introduced 20 “responsible AI” tools with over 90 features within Azure AI to uphold security standards.
The event also highlighted several updates related to Copilot in Microsoft Fabric and AI skills integration. Copilot aims to assist data professionals in increasing productivity and simplifying data analysis tasks. AI skills allow users to have a conversational question-and-answer experience with data sources, enhancing the overall data exploration process.
Furthermore, Microsoft announced enhancements to Fabric’s real-time intelligence capabilities, enabling analysts to leverage low-code and no-code experiences. The platform also introduced a Workload Development Kit for developers to extend applications within the Fabric ecosystem.
Microsoft’s Copilot Studio also received several expansions, allowing for the creation of custom copilots in SharePoint and integrating SharePoint Embedded for building file-centric apps. Additionally, new features for copilot extension publishing through Partner Center were introduced.
In the realm of Azure AI advancements, Microsoft unveiled Azure AI Studio, a platform for developing custom copilot apps. The studio offers workflow orchestration for multimodal models and a model catalog with over 1,600 models for benchmarking purposes. The platform also integrated OpenAI’s GPT-4o model to enhance generative and conversational AI experiences.
On the security front, Microsoft upgraded Defender for Cloud to protect AI applications from code to cloud and introduced a Copilot Trust Platform for enterprise data protection and responsible AI compliance checks.
In the virtual machine domain, Microsoft launched Arm-based virtual machines featuring the new Cobalt processor for improved performance. The Azure Compute Fleet service was also introduced to simplify capacity provisioning across various VM types and pricing models.
The event also showcased .Net Aspire, a cloud-native suite of tools for building cloud-native apps, and a MongoDB Provider for Entity Framework Core.
Overall, Microsoft Build 2024 featured a wide range of updates and advancements in areas such as AI, security, virtual machines, and developer tools, highlighting the company’s commitment to innovation and technological progress.
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https://www.crn.com/news/ai/2024/microsoft-build-2024-the-biggest-news-in-ai-copilots-data-security
