Jan 24 (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) made a big bet on artificial intelligence (AI) on Tuesday, even as economic turmoil has forced Microsoft customers to scrutinize their cloud spending. We aimed to assure investors that they were being rewarded.
Early evidence is the use of a little-discussed tool called GitHub Copilot that can write computer code for programmers.
Launched last June, the tool has garnered 400,000 subscribers in one month. On Tuesday, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said that so far he has used his Copilot by more than one million people.
Microsoft shares fell slightly in after-hours trading on Tuesday after forecasts that cloud computing earnings were slightly below Wall Street expectations for the quarter.
But Copilot’s growth is a preliminary sign that people will pay for so-called generative AI, which can generate prose, images, or, in this case, computer code on command, after learning skills from vast amounts of data. .
Copilot suggests to programmers what to type next and, when enabled, writes up to 35% or 40% of the code in a file, the CEO of Microsoft-owned GitHub said last year. It costs $100 a year for individual subscribers, but can also be billed through a corporate account, according to a GitHub blog post.
Microsoft announced this week that it is embarking on a multi-billion dollar investment, including supercomputer development and cloud support, to power the startup it first backed in 2019, known as OpenAI, at the forefront of generative AI. .
Copilot itself relies on OpenAI technology, as does the sensational chatbot known as ChatGPT, which Open AI released last year. Microsoft says it will make ChatGPT available via the cloud, which will allow you to draft code as well as essays and poems.
ChatGPT has received enough attention that industry observers say it could answer user queries if updated, and that Microsoft’s Bing search engine has been upgraded by industry leader Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O ) may be able to compete with Google. Google is working to launch its own major AI, he previously reported to Reuters.
According to Nadella, Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service, which provides tech for startups through the cloud, has already won 200 customers, including KPMG and Al Jazeera.
Reported by Jeffrey Dastin, Palo Alto, CA.Edited by Leslie Adler
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