Microsoft announces AI assistants on “Memory”

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Microsoft has announced an upgraded version of the Artificial Intelligence Assistant, which remembers user preferences, as the tech group will be responsible for its rivals building AI-injected products designed to attract millions of consumers.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary, the Seattle-based group has announced a personalized “copilot” that allows them to develop “memories” and recall important details such as family birthdays and hobbies.

Mustafa Suleyman, the company’s consumer AI chief and co-founder of Google’s DeepMind unit, previewed several features, including the ability for digital assistants to book tickets independently, book and shop items online.

“This is much richer, more dynamic, supportive and urgent than any software we’ve seen before,” Suleyman said, noting that customers will retain control over their new “agent” AI capabilities.

The Copilot update represents the biggest step in its consumer AI unit, when the company undergoes a strategic overhaul to reduce Openai’s dependency more than a year after Suleyman joined Microsoft.

Microsoft companies such as 365 workplaces and Azure Cloud have helped to increase profitability. This group derives more than three-quarters of its revenue from its services.

However, the company is trying to use AI to reinvent its image among consumers, a market that has frequently lost ground to competitors such as Apple, Amazon and Google.

Suleyman was speaking at an event attended by former CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates. Both leaders have had inadequate bets in the consumer market, such as Zune Music Player and Windows Line smartphones, at various times.

Now CEO Satya Nadella, who took over in early 2014, has pivoted Microsoft’s business even further from desktop computers to the cloud. The company’s stock price has risen 10 times since it rose to almost 2.8 tonnes.

“The Windows Phone was a big mistake. The search was a big mistake. Microsoft had a lot of big mistakes,” says Somasegar, managing director at venture capital firm Madrona and former Microsoft executive. “If the work Mustafa is doing with consumer AI starts to resonate, we start to unravel the vast amount of value.”

Suleyman also demonstrated the ability to generate podcasts poached Deepmind staff who created similar features on Google’s AI units. The company also highlighted a new “vision” feature that allows Copilot to process information from users’ phone cameras.

The Microsoft AI chief previewed Copilot’s plans to have an avatar reminiscent of when it launched the infamous Clippy Digital Assistant in the late 90s.

Microsoft said it is using AI to upgrade Bing searches as it is trying to compete with Google in a market where the Mountain View-based search group holds 90% market share.

This move comes amid concerns that Microsoft has grown by relying on its relationship with Openai. Copilot is built in part using a startup model, but this feature is less popular than the startup’s own ChatGPT. Several Microsoft features highlighted on Friday, including “Deep Research” are available on Openai’s platform.

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Nadella hired Suleyman in March 2024 and is a startup co-founded in 2022, paying $650 million to license Ifferenct’s technology, and hiring a large portion of its talent.

That was less than six months after the boardroom at Open Eye was arrested, including the firing of founder Sam Altman before it was restored at the helm of the organization.

Nadella helped Altman return to his post, but distanced the company from Openai’s capital-intensive pursuit of artificial general information when computers reach or exceed human perception.

“We self-promote some AGI milestones, which are meaningless benchmark hacks for me,” Nadella told podcaster Dowarsch Patel earlier this year.

Instead, Microsoft focuses on the commercialization of technology, claiming that many of the potential uplifts associated with AI are generated through applications. The company has also expanded its pool of AI investments supporting France’s Mistral and Abu Dhabi’s G42.

The Software Group maintains profit sharing agreement with OpenAI and access to the model until at least 2030.