Microsoft outlines broader AI ecosystem for Chinese users

Microsoft is showcasing deeper-level assistance from generative artificial intelligence technologies across its core products and services, as part of its broader push to tap into business opportunities in China.

During the company's offline event for its annual developers conference in Beijing, Microsoft presented, for the first time in China, how generative AI can be applied to help facilitate users' day-to-day productivity through its copilot initiative.

A copilot is an application that uses modern AI and large language models like GPT-4 to assist people with complex tasks.

"You can regard a copilot as your personal assistant. And in the future, every software is expected to have its own copilot, and these copilots can interact with each other, realize intercommunication and complete works in an automatic, compatible and intelligent way," said Li Mian, marketing director for Data & AI projects at Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft 365 Copilot shows how AI can help bring work software such as Word and Teams together. For example, you can tell the copilot to summarize Outlook emails in a certain period in the middle of your Teams meeting, or create a PowerPoint slide based on your meeting without leaving Teams conference.

The move is part of Microsoft's broader push to tap into business opportunities in China.

Earlier, the company localized its teamwork app Microsoft Teams in China in cooperation with Chinese cloud computing company 21Vianet Group to meet the surging online working demand from local customers. It hopes to leverage AI technologies to reshape productivity tools so as to accelerate the digital transformation of a wide range of industries in the country.

"With AI assistance, developers can put their time and energy into more creative and valuable work," said Roan Kang, vice-president for Microsoft and chief operating officer of Microsoft Greater China, "In the future, everyone in the workplace is supposed to have a sense of AI knowledge."