Microsoft Build’s Opening Keynote Solidifies Company’s Investments in AI

Microsoft Build opened its official first day with a keynote, with CEO Satya Nadella taking the stage. During the opening portion of the keynote, Nadella laid out a ton of developer-focused updates on Copilot and Azure.

Nadella took to the stage to lay the foundation for the company’s new era of AI. After launching Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Stack, this year’s Microsoft Build announced the new Copilot+ AI platform. With that comes further integrations across Azure AI. Copilot+ will also become available to developers to create apps and software using Microsoft’s AI this year.

Nadella explains that alongside Copilot+ PC, Windows Copilot Runtime is launching for developers to begin accessing new models and APIs. Coming in June, 40+ models will be available out of the box. Later this year, new AI frameworks and toolchains will be arriving. 50+ new products and partnerships are arriving across the Copilot stack for developers. Enabling developers, the Copilot Stack introduces AI infrastructure across all 60+ datacentres supported by Azure. Nadella reveals that Microsoft is on track to power its centres with 100 percent renewable energy from zero-carbon resources by 2025.

Nadella touched on its ongoing partnership with OpenAI. Explaining how integral GPT 4o will be in using Copilot+, the AI platform can read the screen, and respond using natural conversational language to the user. The Microsoft Build keynote replayed the Minecraft demo shown to the media the day prior, further emphasizing AI’s integral role on Microsoft’s Xbox platform in the future.

Microsoft continued to highlight its Copilot partnership with GitHub. Announced during Microsoft Build, the new GitHub Copilot Extention enables developers to build and deploy in the cloud using natural languages without leaving the GitHub website. An on-stage demo briefly showcased the workflow developers can look forward to when using the extension. At launch, GitHub Copilot Extention will support DataStax, Docker, LambdaTest, LaunchDarkly, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft Azure and Teams, MongoDB, Octopus Deploy, Pangea, Pinecone, Product Science, ReadMe, Sentry, and Stripe.

Microsoft also announced ‘Team Copilot’ which can become a meeting facilitator. The AI tool can manage the agenda, track time and take notes for you when in a Teams Meeting. This Copilot platform can also become a project manager, assisting in organizational tasks when users leverage Teams. Copilot Teams is launching in Preview “later this year,” Nadella announces.

Rounding out its keynote, Microsoft reiterated the recent announcements of Copilot+ PCs, including the new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro. As detailed yesterday, Microsoft’s new Surface laptops start at $1,449.99 in Canada. Preorders are available now and begin shipping on June 18.