Microsoft Partner Summary - February 12th - February 16th 2024
John O'Donnell
ISV, Startup. Marketplace and Partnering with Microsoft Subject Matter Expert | Ex-Microsoft | Microsoft Founders Hub Mentor | Former Microsoft MVP (CRM)
Good morning Microsoft Global Partner Community.
Microsoft unveils 3 AI trends to watch in 2024
Generative AI has made incredible strides over the past year and has become a part of our daily lives. In particular, popular tools such as ChatGPT and?Microsoft Copilot?have confirmed the potential of AI by countless people, from the lab to everyday life.
Microsoft predicts that AI will continue to significantly change people's daily lives and the way they work in 2024. Furthermore, it is expected that the integration and development of AI technology will make it easier to access technologies that help solve the most difficult problems, and make the lives of mankind richer.
Here are three major AI trends to watch in 2024:
Small Language Models?Promote?AI Research and?Innovation
First and foremost, small language models (SLMs) are expected to play a more important role in the field of AI. Small language models with billions of parameters can be easily executed on mobile devices with less time and resources required for learning, and they can be used anytime, anywhere, even when offline without Internet support. You can also use curated, high-quality training data to get more accurate results.
On the other hand, large language models (LLMs) trained on vast amounts of Internet data require a lot of storage space because they have hundreds of billions of parameters, and they consume a lot of resources when they are executed. Parameters are variables that are used by a language model to generate or interpret sentences.
In fact, Microsoft researchers are working to find a new benchmark for performance by developing two small language models,?Phi?and?Orca, that perform equally or better than large language models in specific areas. In particular, it is expected to release an improved model in 2024, which will contribute to the promotion of more research and innovation.
Sebasiten Bubek, head of the Machine Learning Foundation Group at Microsoft, said, "Small language models can make AI more accessible due to their size and cost-effectiveness, and we are working on new ways to augment small language models as much as large language models."
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Multimodal?AI?that harnesses?human?cognition
At the same time, it is expected that multi-modal AI will develop more closely to human cognitive abilities. The technology simultaneously processes various types of data, such as text, images, audio, and video, to improve the performance of various technologies, from search tools to creative apps.
Copilot uses multimodal AI technology to process image, natural language, and Bing search data. This allows users to understand relevant information, such as the historical background of the images they upload.
The AI technology is also being applied to the?Microsoft Designer?graphic design app. Users can generate images based on descriptions of the images they want, and the?Custom Neural Voice?feature supports natural voices for use with text readers and tools for the deaf.
Jennifer Marsman, Principal Engineer at Microsoft's Office of CTO, emphasized that "multimodality has the ability to leverage the multiple senses that humans use, such as sight, voice, and hearing, to create human-like experiences."
AI?unlocks?new?possibilities?in science
Lastly, he predicted that AI technology will be able to provide innovative solutions in the scientific field of global problems such as climate change, energy crisis, and disease.
Microsoft is using AI to build?tools for sustainable agriculture, including developing improved weather forecasting systems and carbon meters aimed at mitigating climate change and helping farmers work more efficiently. In addition, it is developing an AI chatbot that farmers can use in the field, such as grasping weed information and checking the status of tractors.
In the life sciences, researchers are collaborating on the?world's largest, image-based AI model to fight cancer, and are using cutting-edge AI to?find?new drugs for infectious diseases?and new?molecules for breakthrough medicines. This reduces the verification process that takes more than a few years to weeks or months.
It is also revolutionizing the field of materials science. Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, has teamed up with Microsoft to accelerate?the search for less toxic battery materials?using AI and high-performance computing technologies.
Chris Bishop, director of the?AI4Science team?at Microsoft Research, is optimistic that "AI is driving a revolution in scientific discovery" and that it will be "one of the most exciting and ultimately most important uses of AI."
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Microsoft Copilot for Security: The great equalizer for government security
Cybersecurity for government organizations is a game of speed, with cyberattackers working to compromise networks and steal data as swiftly as possible before defenders can detect and deter them. In this ongoing battle, cyberattackers have traditionally had an asymmetrical advantage.?
From the moment a user clicks on a bad hyperlink in a malicious email, it can take as little as?72 minutes?before an attacker begins to exfiltrate data. By contrast, it takes an average of 277 days for organizations to identify and contain a data breach.1?The advantage gap is widening, as nation-state-actors and cybercriminals are actively employing AI to step up their attacks. To cite just one measure: in 2023, password attacks globally increased from three billion to 30 billion per month.2??
HOW GOVERNMENTS ARE LEVELING THE CYBERSECURITY PLAYING FIELD WITH CLOUD AND AI
The good news is that advances in hyperscale cloud and AI technology promise to help shift the balance of cybersecurity power to the defenders. In my previous blog, I examined the strategies governments can take to minimize cybersecurity risk and advance security effectiveness with Microsoft technology. Now, I’d like to explain how?Microsoft Copilot for Security?offers one of the most powerful new opportunities for governments to make dramatic improvements in cybersecurity, thanks to the power of generative AI.??
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