Microsoft extends enterprise apps with generative AI tools
Microsoft continues to expand its products with generative AI tools and features based on OpenAI’s large language models, pushing into business services this week. The company launched a synthetic text generator called Copilot for the Dynamics 365 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform as well as Power Platform, its application and workflow builder.
Copilot Dynamics
Microsoft is launching the Dynamics 365 Copilot tool to handle some sales and customer service tasks with AI. The tool, which shares a name but is otherwise distinct from the GitHub Copilot code assistant service, can write meeting summaries and emails to customers, adding details from a connected database to populate meeting notes and context from past interactions to help respond customers. Power Platform’s Power Virtual Agents can take advantage of generative AI in the same way, deploying what Microsoft calls “conversation amplifiers” to the chatbot builder and augmenting the conversational AI with information on a website or other relevant database. Microsoft’s AI builder can use the same technology to make text generation a feature of other programs, automatically summarizing or preparing reports and plans and sending them to the appropriate team members.
“Dynamics 365 Copilot leverages recent advances in generative AI to automate these tedious tasks and unlock the full creativity of the workforce. Dynamics 365 Copilot puts CRM and ERP to work for business users to accelerate their pace of innovation and improve business outcomes across all industries,” explained Microsoft’s executive vice president of business applications and platform Charles Lamanna in a blog post. “The next era of business applications is being transformed by generative AI. Users will increasingly expect their CRM and ERP applications to include AI-powered expertise. Dynamics 365 Copilot brings the latest AI breakthroughs to all industries, improving customer experience, employee experience and operational efficiency.”
Microsoft Generative AI
Microsoft’s plan to infuse its software with generative AI has begun to accelerate in recent weeks. Microsoft Teams Premium subscribers already have generative AI for note-taking; the new features enhance these notes with more context. The same applies to the Azure integration with OpenAI’s technology. While the consumer-facing Bing generative AI chatbot has grabbed most of the headlines lately, this news makes it clear that the enterprise side of Microsoft’s products won’t be lacking its own generative AI capabilities.
“According to our recent business trends survey, nearly 9 out of 10 workers hope to use artificial intelligence to reduce repetitive tasks in their jobs,” said Lamanna. “With Dynamics 365 Copilot, organizations empower their workers with AI tools built for sales, service, marketing, operations and supply chain roles. These AI capabilities allow everyone to spend more time on the best parts of the job and less time on mundane tasks.”
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