The potential of generative AI is far greater than what we can currently comprehend. It has the ability to revolutionize industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and education, fundamentally transforming our lives and work. At the forefront of this innovation are developers who are pushing boundaries and creating new value for businesses and society at an unprecedented pace. Microsoft Azure, a trusted platform for mission-critical applications, provides developers with a secure and responsible environment to build next-generation, AI-powered applications.
Microsoft made announcements at Microsoft Build 2023 in all key areas to empower organizations to lead in this new era of AI. Microsoft Build 2023—a celebration of the developer community. This year, they focused deep into the latest advancements in application development and AI technologies that are driving the next wave of innovation. Microsoft’s focus is threefold: delivering state-of-the-art AI capabilities, empowering developers with comprehensive tools and resources for secure and responsible AI development, and providing AI-assisted developer tooling to streamline the coding process.
Microsoft has made significant announcements in all key areas to empower developers and organizations to lead in the AI-driven era.
Unlock the potential of your data with generative AI
Generative AI has emerged as a defining technology of our generation, revolutionizing how we search for and consume information daily. Microsoft sees customers across various industries embracing Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. In March, Microsoft announced the preview of OpenAI’s GPT-4 in Azure OpenAI Service, enabling developers to seamlessly integrate custom AI-powered experiences into their applications. Today, OpenAI’s GPT-4 is generally available in Azure OpenAI Service, and Microsoft is building on this announcement with several new capabilities that allow you to leverage generative AI with your data and seamlessly orchestrate AI within your existing systems.
One of the exciting offerings is Azure AI Studio, a user-friendly platform where developers can effortlessly deploy powerful conversational AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-4 on their own data. Azure OpenAI Service, soon to be available in public preview, coupled with Azure Cognitive Search, empowers employees, customers, and partners to uncover valuable insights hidden within vast volumes of data, text, images, and more using natural language-based app interfaces. By utilizing these capabilities, you can create richer experiences and provide organization-specific insights, whether it’s inventory levels or healthcare benefits.
To enhance the capabilities of large language models, Microsoft announced that Azure Cognitive Search will support vectors in Azure (currently in private preview). This feature enables you to store, index, and deliver search applications over vector embeddings of various data types, including text, images, audio, video, and graphs. Furthermore, the integration of plugins with Azure OpenAI Service (private preview) simplifies the process of building and consuming APIs by facilitating the integration of external data sources. These plugins include Azure Cognitive Search, Azure SQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Microsoft Translator, and Bing Search. Additionally, we are introducing a Provisioned Throughput Model, which will soon be generally available in limited access, offering dedicated capacity.
Numerous customers, including DocuSign, Volvo, Ikea, Crayon, and many others, are already benefiting from Azure OpenAI Service today. Discover more about the latest updates with Azure OpenAI Service.
Unlock the Potential of AI-Powered Apps with Azure for Seamless Scalability
When it comes to running and scaling applications while harnessing the power of AI, Azure’s cloud-native platform stands out as the ultimate choice. With Azure, you have the flexibility to prioritize control or adaptability, all while maintaining unwavering focus on productivity.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) empowers you with complete control and provides the fastest way to develop and deploy intelligent, cloud-native applications in Azure, data centers, or even at the edge. It comes equipped with built-in code-to-cloud pipelines and guardrails, enabling you to efficiently handle the scale and criticality of your applications. Microsoft shared some highly anticipated innovations for AKS that will revolutionize your app development experience.
To offer enterprises greater control over their environment, Microsoft announced long-term support for Kubernetes. This extended support allows customers to stay on the same release for a duration of two years, double the current capability. Additionally, we are pleased to introduce Azure Linux as a container host operating system platform optimized specifically for AKS. This optimization enhances performance and efficiency. Furthermore, Azure customers can now access a vibrant ecosystem of first-party and third-party solutions through easy click-through deployments available on the Azure Marketplace. Lastly, we are actively developing confidential containers as a first-party supported offering for AKS. This feature, aligned with Kata Confidential Containers, enables teams to run applications in a manner that supports zero-trust operator deployments on AKS.
Azure provides a range of serverless execution environments, allowing you to build, deploy, and dynamically scale applications without the need for infrastructure management. One such offering is Azure Container Apps, a fully managed service designed to run microservices and containerized applications on a serverless platform. Microsoft announced several new capabilities, currently in preview, that simplify serverless application development. Developers can now run Azure Container Apps jobs on demand, schedule applications, and execute event-driven ad hoc tasks asynchronously until completion. This advancement allows smaller executables within complex jobs to run in parallel, making it effortless to run unattended batch jobs alongside your core business logic. With these innovations in our container and serverless products, Azure provides a seamless and natural environment for building intelligent cloud-native applications.
Experience the true potential of AI-powered apps by leveraging the scalability and features of Azure. Scale your applications effortlessly while enjoying the benefits of native AI services. Unleash the power of Azure’s cloud-native platform to drive innovation and transform your business.
Streamlined Development with Integrated AI-Based Tools on Azure
In today’s fast-paced development landscape, building intelligent, AI-embedded applications on Azure is crucial. However, it is equally important to empower developers by reducing time-consuming tasks like debugging and infrastructure management. To achieve this, Microsoft is investing in integrated tools such as GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Dev Box, and Azure Deployment Environments, enabling developers to increase their velocity and scale while focusing on strategic and meaningful work.
GitHub Copilot, the world’s first AI developer tool at scale, is revolutionizing coding by helping millions of developers write code up to 55 percent faster. In the latest announcement, Microsoft is introducing a new Copilot experiences integrated into Visual Studio. This integration eliminates wasted time when starting a new project and enhances the development experience. Additionally, they are introducing several new capabilities for Microsoft Dev Box. This includes new starter developer images and deeper integration with Visual Studio, resulting in faster setup times and improved performance for developers.
Furthermore, Microsoft announced the general availability of Azure Deployment Environments, a game-changing solution that simplifies the deployment process. With Azure Deployment Environments, developers can create consistent and reproducible environments for testing and staging applications. There are also extending our support to include HashiCorp Terraform in addition to Azure Resource Manager, providing developers with more flexibility and choice in managing their infrastructure.
By leveraging these integrated, AI-based tools, developers can streamline their workflows, boost productivity, and focus on delivering innovative solutions. Azure empowers developers to thrive by providing an environment that fosters efficiency, collaboration, and rapid development.
Unlock the full potential of your development projects by harnessing the power of these integrated tools on Azure. Simplify your coding process, accelerate setup times, and streamline deployment workflows. Empower your developers to thrive and drive meaningful innovation in today’s fast-evolving technology landscape.