(Redmond) Microsoft’s new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot will be able to remember everything users do on their computer. The IT giant wants users to be comfortable enough with this “chatbot” to ask it what they should do on their computer.
Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new class of AI-enabled personal computers, as it faces increased competition from rivals in pushing generative AI technology capable of writing documents, creating images and serve as an effective personal assistant at work or at home.
Announcements made ahead of Microsoft’s annual developer conference focused on merging its AI assistant, called Copilot, into the Windows operating system for PCs, where Microsoft has the attention of millions of consumers.
New features will include Windows Recall, which equips the AI assistant with what Microsoft describes as a “photographic memory” of a person’s virtual activity. Microsoft promises to protect users’ privacy by giving them the ability to choose what they don’t want to be tracked by AI and ensuring that the information collected remains on personal computers.
It’s a step toward machines that “instantly see, hear and reason about our intentions and our environment,” said Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella.
“We’re entering this new era where computers understand us, but can actually anticipate what we want to do and our intentions,” Mr. Nadella said at an event at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Washington State.
The conference, which begins Tuesday in Seattle, will follow big artificial intelligence announcements from rival Google last week, as well as Microsoft’s close business partner OpenAI, which built the major AI language models on which is based Copilot.
Although Copilot is rooted in OpenAI’s large language models, Microsoft said new AI-enabled computers will also rely heavily on its own “small language models” designed to be more efficient and capable of operating more easily on a consumer’s personal device.
Powered by Qualcomm chips, many computers will end up in the hands of workers at large organizations looking to refresh their inventory, said Jason Wong, an analyst at Gartner.
AI applications, from graphics production to language translation, “can now run locally without having to go back to the cloud to process them,” Wong said. This will help you in what you can do without the internet connected and make [l’IA] even more efficient. »