Microsoft on Wednesday announced new artificial intelligence features and functionality for several of its flagship products and services, including Office 365, Cortana and Bing, at an event in San Francisco. Harry Shum, EVP of Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research, demonstrated some of the new capabilities<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Building on the progress the company has made in integrating AI over the past year, the new enhancements are designed to help users perform increasingly complex and complicated tasks.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cAI has come a long way in the ability to find information, but making sense of that information is the real challenge,\u201d said Kristina Behr, a partner design and planning program manager with Microsoft\u2019s Artificial Intelligence and Research group.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
One of the advances, machine reading comprehension, will improve an AI-based system\u2019s understanding of context \u2014 for example, recognizing that one\u2019s cousin is a family member.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Pearson Education \u2013 Click For More<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Search Benefits
Bing users will get more personalized answers, Microsoft said, such as restaurant recommendations based on travel destinations, or a greater variety of answers to offer different perspectives on a topic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
AI guidance might help users figure out the exact questions they want to ask if their search queries are too vague to deliver meaningful results.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Bing will utilize visual search as a way to help people seek information about items or objects in photos. This functionality will comprise the use of object recognition along with machine reading comprehension.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
An Office AI
Microsoft announced improvements in AI integration with its Office 365 tools as well. The spreadsheet program Excel, for example, will employ machine learning as a way to analyze data and predict trends via pivot tables and charts. The new AI tools also will be able to extract insights from smaller sets of data.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Importantly, use of the new AI functionality won\u2019t require more advanced training in Excel for users to determine which sets of data should be used to gain deeper insights.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
More Conscious Cortana
Microsoft\u2019s virtual assistant Cortana will get an upgrade as well, allowing it to make use of machine reading comprehension to summarize search results. Cortana also will be able to sort through a user\u2019s emails to identify the most important ones and even read them aloud during a commute, for example. Use of that functionality will extend to emails from multiple accounts, including on competing services such as Gmail.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Cortana also has been enhanced with \u201cskills chaining,\u201d allowing it to suggest additions to one\u2019s calendar after tickets have been booked, for example.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Astute AI
These AI advances likely will be subtle and may go unnoticed by many users.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cAI will creep more and more into our lives,\u201d said Roger Entner, principal analyst at Recon Analytics.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cIdeally it will help to make tools like Bing, Cortana and Office 365 more userful,\u201d he told TechNewsWorld.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cThis is the good AI, not the Terminator AI,\u201d noted Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cIn most cases, AI functions will be transparent to users just like they are in search engines today,\u201d he told TechNewsWorld.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The AI functionality simply makes the tools more efficient and useful.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cThink of this as reducing some of the simple tasks \u2014 not the human part of the equation,\u201d McGregor suggested, \u201cand think about intelligent digital assistants and word predictors or spell checkers that are more reliable than the ones we have today. This will be the most common form of AI \u2014 embedded solutions that make the tools we use better, from search engines to scientific research.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
How Far to Take It
Although the most extreme AI danger may lie in the rise of machines that overpower human controls, there are more subtle menaces to consider when it comes to the place it will take in our lives.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cIt is upon us to draw a line,\u201d said Entner.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cExamples like Google and its all-encompassing \u2018data kraken\u2019 make it clear how blurry the line is between really useful and really creepy \u2014 like when your Android phone constantly asks you if you are actually shopping at the store you are at,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cBig brother [could be] watching all the time.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Microsoft on Wednesday announced new artificial intelligence features and functionality for several of its flagship products and services, including Office 365, Cortana and Bing, at an event in San Francisco. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[707,712,4],"tags":[30,56,412,634,1305],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-international","category-technology","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-microsoft","tag-technology","tag-tools"],"yoast_head":"\n