Microsoft - Maginative

Microsoft Google Meta

Microsoft and Alphabet Ride AI Wave to Impressive Q1 Earnings, Meta Stumbles

Chris McKay• April 26, 2024 • 4 min read

AI has been a key driver for Microsoft and Alphabet with Microsoft's cloud services, particularly its Azure platform, benefiting from the technology. Alphabet's Google Cloud division also turned a profit for the first time, now accounting for over 10% of the company's overall revenue.

Microsoft

Microsoft Launches Phi-3 Mini: A Lightweight AI Model Packing a Punch

Chris McKay• April 23, 2024 • 2 min read

By quantizing the model to 4-bits, researchers were able to reduce its memory footprint to just 1.8GB. This allowed them to deploy the model on an iPhone 14 with an A16 Bionic chip, running natively on-device and fully offline.

Microsoft Enterprise AI

Cognizant and Microsoft Expand Partnership to Drive Generative AI Adoption

Richard Banfield• April 22, 2024 • 2 min read

As part of the partnership, Cognizant has invested in 25,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot seats for its associates, along with 500 Sales Copilot and 500 Services Copilot seats.

Microsoft Research

Microsoft's VASA can Create a Realistic Talking Head Video from a Single Photo

Chris McKay• April 18, 2024 • 1 min read

VASA demonstrates superior performance compared to existing methods, delivering high-quality video frames with precise lip-audio synchronization and a diverse array of lifelike facial dynamics.

Microsoft Startups

Microsoft Invests $1.5 Billion in UAE's G42

Chris McKay• April 16, 2024 • 2 min read

The deal is backed by an unprecedented Intergovernmental Assurance Agreement, ensuring the secure and responsible deployment of AI in close coordination with the UAE and U.S. governments.

Microsoft Japan AI Infrastructure

Microsoft Invests $2.9 Billion in Japan to Boost AI and Compute Infrastructure

Richard Banfield• April 9, 2024 • 2 min read

Microsoft has pledged to empower 3 million full-time and part-time workers in Japan over the next three years through AI skilling initiatives.

Microsoft

Microsoft Announces New AI Hub in London

Richard Banfield• April 8, 2024 • 2 min read

The establishment of the London hub comes on the heels of Microsoft's £2.5 billion investment in upskilling the U.K. workforce for the AI era and building the necessary infrastructure to power the AI economy.

Microsoft Cohere

Cohere's Command R+ Debuts on Microsoft Azure

Richard Banfield• April 4, 2024 • 2 min read

Deploying Cohere models through Microsoft's Models as a Service (MaaS) offering streamlines the process, allowing businesses to harness the power of Command R+ without the complexity of managing underlying infrastructure.

Microsoft Enterprise AI

Microsoft Announces New Tools to Enhance Security and Trust in Generative AI Applications

Chris McKay• April 1, 2024 • 2 min read

These tools aim to address AI quality and safety challenges by detecting and blocking prompt injection attacks, identifying hallucinations, and providing safety evaluations.

Microsoft OpenAI AI Infrastructure

Microsoft and OpenAI Plan $100 Billion Stargate AI Supercomputer

Chris McKay• March 29, 2024 • 2 min read

This audacious vision underscores the transformative potential of AI and the lengths tech giants are willing to go to secure their place at the forefront of this revolution.

Microsoft

Microsoft Adds Copilot Enhancements in Teams to Improve Collaboration and Hybrid Meetings

Chris McKay• March 26, 2024 • 2 min read

All these updates are part of the company's ongoing efforts to build a foundation for the future, with a strong focus on the core fundamentals of Teams, including performance, reliability, and ease of use.

Microsoft Inflection

Microsoft Reportedly Paying Inflection $650 Million for AI Talent and Tech

Chris McKay• March 21, 2024 • 3 min read

The deal structure has raised questions about whether Microsoft designed it to avoid lengthy antitrust reviews, as U.S. officials have expressed concern about the concentration of AI power among a few large technology giants.

Microsoft Inflection

Inflection AI Pivots as CEO Mustafa Suleyman Joins Microsoft to Lead New AI Division

Chris McKay• March 19, 2024 • 3 min read

The addition of Suleyman and the formation of the Microsoft AI team is expected to accelerate the company's pace of innovation in the consumer AI domain.

Microsoft

Microsoft Expands Copilot Pro Globally, Offers Free One-Month Trial

Chris McKay• March 14, 2024 • 2 min read

Copilot Pro is now available in all 222 countries/regions where Copilot is available.

$Orca-Math Shows the Potential of Specialized Small Language Models$

Microsoft Research

Orca-Math Shows the Potential of Specialized Small Language Models

Richard Banfield• March 5, 2024 • 3 min read

The research shows the value of smaller, specialized models in specific domains, where they can match or even surpass the performance of much larger models.

Microsoft

Microsoft Introduces Dedicated AI Assistant for Finance Professionals

Chris McKay• March 1, 2024 • 1 min read

Microsoft says the tool gives finance professionals access to insight while in the flow of work to support strategic decision-making and reduce the time spent on manual, repetitive work.

Microsoft Mistral

Microsoft's $16.3 Million Investment in Mistral AI Attracts Scrutiny from EU Regulators

Chris McKay• February 27, 2024 • 2 min read

While Microsoft's equity stake is currently about 1%, pending Mistral's next funding round, regulators will assess if the tech giant is gaining unfair advantage across multiple generative AI players.

Mistral Microsoft

Microsoft Announces Multi-year Partnership with Mistral AI

Chris McKay• February 26, 2024 • 2 min read

The integration of Mistral models into the Azure AI model catalog accessible through Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning provides Microsoft customers with a diverse selection of the best state-of-the-art and open-source models for crafting and deploying custom AI applications.

OpenAI Microsoft AI Safety Cybersecurity

State-Affiliated Hackers from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea Used ChatGPT to Boost Cyberattacks

Chris McKay• February 15, 2024 • 2 min read

While concerning, Microsoft and OpenAI said the observed activities suggest AI is currently providing "only limited, incremental capabilities" for advanced hacking beyond existing methods.

Microsoft

Microsoft Unveils New Copilot Features and Shows Off Upcoming Superbowl Ad

Chris McKay• February 7, 2024 • 2 min read

The updated Copilot experience now runs on a new fine-tuned version of GPT-4 called Deucalion.

Microsoft

Microsoft Bets Big on India's AI Potential

Chris McKay• February 7, 2024 • 2 min read

Speaking at the Microsoft CEO Connection event, Nadella highlighted how solutions like Microsoft Copilot are already driving strong productivity gains for Indian organizations.

Microsoft AI Tech

Microsoft Unveils Face Check Facial Recognition to Enable Secure Enterprise Identity Verification

Chris McKay• February 6, 2024 • 1 min read

The new Face Check feature provides real-time facial matching between a user's selfie and the photo on their identity document, such as a passport or driver's license.

Microsoft Education

How Microsoft is Helping Educators Use AI to Unlock Productivity and Personalize Learning

Chris McKay• January 18, 2024 • 4 min read

New updates include expanded availability of Microsoft Copilot, Loop, and Reading Coach, alongside initiatives to improve AI literacy and online safety.

Microsoft Biotech & Health

AI Speeds Up Hunt for New Infectious Disease Treatments

Chris McKay• January 16, 2024 • 2 min read

Researchers successfully used generative AI and foundation models to design several small molecule inhibitors for essential target proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and coronaviruses.

Microsoft

Microsoft Launches Copilot Pro

Chris McKay• January 15, 2024 • 2 min read

Designed for power users, creators, and those striving for enhanced productivity, Copilot Pro is a premium subscription that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365, offering an advanced AI experience.