Tomorrow marks the start ofMicrosoft Build, and as with every other tech event this year, we expect it tofocus heavily on AI. Microsoft build is the company’s annual U.S. developer conference. It’s a three-day event in Seattle packed with instructional sessions, demonstrations, and keynote speeches covering a range of topics to highlight innovations in hardware, software, and, yes, AI.
Like Google I/O and WWDC, Microsoft Build is geared toward developers, but should have some exciting consumer-focused news – especially when it comes to AI. The exciting consumer-focused news will likely be announced in the opening keynote tomorrow, but if you love to nerd out on technology and data, it could be worth checking out thefull list of sessions.
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AI, AI, and more AI
Copilot and AI Explorer
It should be no surprise that AI is a major focus of the conference. After all, that’s been the theme of most things this year, and the tagline of the event is “How will AI shape your future?” A quick look at the planned sessions shows anextremely long listof AI-based sessions. Some of those talks focus on the development of AI, such as one titled “Learn how to accelerate Stable Diffusion.” Practically, though, where do we expect to see some of this consumer-focused AI?
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First and foremost, Microsoft has been pushing its AI Copilot tool, so we expect to see even more Copilot capabilities and tighter Windows integration. Microsoft is backed by OpenAI’s GTP, which recently announced its more advancedGTP-4o model.
That means there could be a substantial update to features in Microsoft’s Copilot. It’s likely that most new features will have some taste of AI, just like we saw at Google’s I/O event last week.
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The Copilot updates will likely revolve around accessibility, including live captions, the ability to use voice commands, and more interaction between AI and your computer and files. We always appreciate a focus on accessibility, so we hope that this is indeed true.
We also expect to see a new AI tool dubbed AI Explorer, whichWindows Centralsays is a catch-all term for machine learning-based features. This new tool could include an upgraded search tool that allows for natural language input. There could even be a timeline feature so you can scroll through anything you’ve done recently on your computer, making it easier to find that article you read yesterday or the song you listened to in the morning. Who knows, maybe it could keep us from having hundreds of tabs open at once.
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It remains to be seen how many of these features are available right away and for free. Many of Microsoft’s Copilot announcements have taken months to reach consumers. Microsoft also clearly has a monetization strategy for its Copilot service, so some of the more advanced features could be locked behind the $20-a-month paywall.
We also expect to see some AI features announced beyond Copilot, as hinted in the session titled “Learn how to accelerate Stable Diffusion.” This session promises “exciting product announcements.” We just hope they don’t push AI-based art production likeGoogle didat its conference last week.
Updated hardware
New chips and Arm-based devices
Microsoft Build typically includes some hardware announcements, and this time is likely no different. Specifically, we’re anticipating that Microsoft will most likely unveil new Surface devices. The new devices seem poised to be powered by Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite chip, which would enable these Windows machines to compete with Apple’s recent Silicon-based computers in battery life and overall performance.
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Office updates
New productivity tools
Perhaps less exciting is the potential for Microsoft 365 updates with, you guessed it, more AI functionality. Microsoft has been pushing custom functionality of Copilot for corporations, so we expect to see more features geared towards those types of users, on top of general consumers.
Beyond AI, we could also see some Microsoft Office VR and AR updates with Microsoft Mesh.
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Beyond AI, we could also see some Microsoft Office VR and AR updates with Microsoft Mesh. There is a joint Microsoft-Meta panel titled “Meta & Microsoft: The future of Windows productivity and mixed reality.” While we don’t know specifics yet, Meta likely wants to continue pushing the use of AR and VR in productivity settings, so a partnership with Microsoft would be a smart move.
