Platforms and opportunity in the era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge

Our Build conference is about imagining what’s possible – and, more importantly, making it possible.

This week at Build I talked about how as computing is becoming embedded in the world – in every place, every industry, everything – the opportunity is for developers to come together to build the world we all want to live in.

It’s this sense of purpose that grounds us in our mission: To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. It starts by empowering developers with the platforms and tools to go after moonshots in every industry, in every sphere of life and society. 

This opportunity comes with tremendous responsibility – both as a platform company and as a broader community of developers. We have to work collectively to instill trust in technology across everything we do. These aren’t just words we use or claims we make, we must incorporate trust into the design process of every product, always prioritizing privacy, cybersecurity and responsible AI.

At Build, I talked about four distinct platform opportunities we are creating for developers in this era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge: Azure, which provides the core hybrid infrastructure, as well as the data and AI runtimes for the world’s applications; Dynamics 365 and Power Platform for business process automation; Microsoft 365 as a productivity and communications fabric that creates a scaffolding for all developers; and Microsoft Gaming, enabling gamers to play with anyone, anywhere on any device. 

Azure: The world’s computer

It starts with Azure. We are building Azure as the world’s computer, with more compliance certifications and data regions than any other public cloud provider, to meet the real-world needs of our customers. And we are the open cloud platform of choice – from Windows and Linux to Java and .NET – and supporting everything from Kubernetes to VMware.

And we are not stopping there. We are extending to the edge. From Azure and Azure Stack to Azure IoT and Azure Sphere, we have one consistent distributed computing fabric between the cloud and the edge – across operating models, developer environments, as well as the technology stack.

Ninety-five percent of the Fortune 500 are on Azure today. And at Build, I talked about how customers in every industry are using Azure to build their own digital capability to compete and grow. We saw how Starbucks, as an example, is creating even more personal, seamless customer experiences with Azure and integrating digital technology across everything they do – from their focus on sustainability to how they recommend your next drink. Take a look:

Our goal is to democratize AI – with infrastructure, tools and frameworks and services so that every organization can become an AI-first company. Azure Speech Service is a great example of the possibilities, enabling customers to train AI to learn the language of their business so that even the most jargon-laden language can be automatically transcribed:

I also showed how companies are using our conversational AI services – specifically our bot framework and associated tools – to transform how they engage with their customers. BMW has built a personal assistant for its cars, while Jet.com has created a customer service bot on its website. Coca-Cola has also built bots for internal functions, from IT to HR to finance.

Another area of AI is mixed reality. HoloLens 2 is the quintessential AI device. The combination of HoloLens 2 with our Azure mixed reality services is ushering in a new era of mixed reality that is transforming how people work. PACCAR, Philips and PTC are just a few of the many companies using our mixed reality services to digitize physical spaces and interactions to empower their firstline workers with the right information at the right time, in the context of their business process work.

I also talked about autonomous systems, and a set of services we are bringing to market that combine simulation capabilities with new techniques around machine teaching. For example, Shell is using these services for autonomous precision drilling, while Schneider Electric is using them to manage temperature control systems.

Dynamics 365 and Power Platform: Harnessing the power of connected data and intelligence

As the world becomes digitized, there is an opportunity for every organization to harness the power of connected data and intelligence to become a true, AI-first company. With Dynamics 365, we have rewritten Dynamics as an Azure cloud native app, and with Power Platform we are making it extensible.

Third-party developers across every vertical are using Dynamics and Power Platform to build vertical-specific, customized apps, and I shared several examples. They can build on top of Dynamics 365’s modular architecture and access all the richness of Azure – from infrastructure to data and AI – as well as the Common Data Model. They can add their own entities and data. And they can embed the Power Platform within their apps – including Flow for workflow, Power BI for analytics and PowerApps for low/no-code app building.

And we are going even further with the Open Data Initiative we announced with Adobe and SAP last year. Together, we will enable data to be exchanged and enriched across systems, making it a renewable resource that enables new intelligent customer experiences.

Unilever, as an example, has used the Open Data Initiative to bring together disparate customer, product and resource data and generate AI-driven insights from one system and area of their business to improve another system and business function. For example, they are using insight gained from their supply chain to reduce plastic packaging and encourage consumer recycling on one end – and then using this data to help market and communicate to audiences that want to know more about sustainability. AI-first companies of the future will be great at being able to leverage ongoing insights from one system to help improve business results in another on a daily basis by enriching their data through well architected data infrastructure.

Microsoft 365: The world’s productivity cloud across work and life

Microsoft 365 is the only comprehensive solution that brings together connected experiences, integrated workflows and intelligent security. The Microsoft Graph underlies Microsoft 365 and makes available information about people, their relationships, all their artifacts – so developers can build a new class of people-centric apps. And with Microsoft Graph data connect, organizations like Christian Dior can grant ISVs like Talentsoft permission so they can build apps that provide even more value, using Graph data to identify employee skillsets and staff teams accordingly.

We are also building our own first party services, like My Analytics, Microsoft Search and Cortana on the Graph. We believe in a future where agents like Cortana will be multi-turn, multi-domain and multi-agent. Where agents retain context across a conversation. Where conversations naturally cross skill boundaries. And where you don’t have to invoke individual agents, just like today you don’t have to go to a web directory to access a website. We shared our vision for this future:

I also talked about how we are investing to make Windows, Office, Edge and Teams rich canvases for developers. Every app – whether Win32, WPF or UWP – can be annotated with Graph data and can incorporate NUI, whether that means speech, Windows Hello or ink.

And with Edge, we’re making a commitment to the future of the web. This starts with a commitment to open-source. We are building Edge on the Chromium open-source project and are making our own contributions to the community in areas like accessibility, ARM64 support and touch. We are also committed to making Edge cross-platform, bringing it not only to Windows 10 but to Windows 7, iOS, Android and the Mac. We are committed to making Edge private and secure, providing end users with new controls. And, finally, we are committed to innovating on the web, specifically in the area of collaboration as we showed with our Fluid Framework:

Another canvas is Teams, the fastest growing application in our history, which is gaining traction not just among knowledge workers but firstline workers too. What makes this momentum possible is how we bring together messaging, meetings and video conferencing, collaboration, as well as business workflows, into one user interface scaffolding:

We also showed how partners can use mixed reality to build immersive applications that integrate with Teams and transform the way people work:

Gaming: Play with anyone, anywhere on any device

The fourth platform opportunity I talked about is gaming. Microsoft has a rich history in gaming and an amazing gaming franchise with Xbox. To us, great gaming necessitates putting the gamer at the center to ensure they have the best experience across all devices, whether that’s the console, the PC or mobile – and that’s our goal with our new services like Xbox Game Pass.

It also requires putting the game developer at the center. Microsoft Game Stack brings together all our tools and services so game developers can bring their game ideas to life, distribute them and successfully operate them. Core to our approach is Azure PlayFab, which provides LiveOps to game developers so they can make data-driven changes to a game after it is launched, as well as our Xbox Live community, which we are bringing to iOS and Android.

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It was exciting to talk about how we’re building the modern technology stack for applications, data and AI; for business processes; for communications and productivity; and for gaming.

These platforms are a rich canvas for developers in this era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge, enabling them to turn dreams into reality. Not just to imagine the future, but to create it. To build magical experiences—and create the world we all want to live in.

I can’t wait to see what you build.