Microsoft CEO Nadella: Our AI road will be different

Introduction: See how software giants link Cortana, Office, HoloLens, and Azure services to the AI â€‹â€‹experience.

Microsoft is born with a mission

Microsoft held an IT people's technology conference in Atlanta. This afternoon, shortly after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella finished the keynote address of the conference, he briefly explained to me the company's artificial intelligence vision:

"Microsoft was born to do something clear. We are empowering organizations around the world to do more. Today, we need to use artificial intelligence to achieve this."

However, even if Microsoft only pursues the artificial intelligence that it believes is related to its mission core, it still needs to complete a lot of work. Here are some examples of keynote speeches. It can explain some details that are included but not limited to These ones.

â€¢ Using a healthy point of view helped Cortana associates realize that users tend to madly eat junk food while on the move, and may miss fitness time on the road.

Work with Volvo to analyze driver facial expressions to ensure that they stay alert, free from disturbances, and have a feeling of safe driving, thus making the car safer.

â€¢ Put the football/baseball legend Deion Sanders on stage to try the National Football League's dream football robot. Microsoft is already preparing for next season.

Â· Take a selfie, and the use of facial recognition technology Microsoft is analyzed to verify the identity of Uber drivers.

â€¢ Call Lens Augmented Reality to preview the kitchen renovation project in the Lowe store based on the shopper's Pinterest pin recommendations.

Â· Instantly translate a small portion of "war and peace" using Azure cloud computing services and Microsoft designed floating-gate array chips.

Although most of the examples have their amazing side, Nadella immediately emphasized:

"In addition to thinking about the future of Microsoft AI, we will also think about what Microsoft has done. This is not everything in the future. Volvo, Uber, Lowe are using it."

Research turns into products faster and faster

This does not mean that the company does not intend to use artificial intelligence to solve long-term projects, including some that most people do not automatically admit to being within their terms of reference, such as using "bio-computing" technology to better understand how to fight cancer. Nadella said that the company has actually been involved in these studies for many years, and now it can use its Azure platform to work more effectively with the outside world, such as pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which is a Microsoft cancer research partner.

He added:

â€œRecent progress has been very fast, and the pace of research has become faster and faster. Sometimes even I myself are aggressive. For example, Microsoft researcher Doug Burger demonstrated the progress of Azure/FPGA in a technical keynote speech. But what he showed has long been used to help Microsoft's cloud computing customers. This is not just academic work. He asked me to write a major review and deploy FPGAs to all of Azure's compute nodes."

When I asked Nadella how Microsoft used its resources to create the required artificial intelligence, he replied:

"On the one hand is to mix already existing resources. It is constantly updated, we have talents in various fields. For example, facial recognition technology originated in the Xbox Kinect sensor, which is now part of the Microsoft Cognitive Services Suite and is in use The company has technologies such as Uber, and Bing, which was originally born from image search technology, has also been used in holographic lenses.â€

Moreover, the company wants to acquire LinkedIn for no more than US$26 billion in preparation for the future. When asked about this issue, Nadella first reminded us that the transaction has not yet been finalized. But he said:

â€œWe are full of passion and the key point is that we have a lot of momentum in the professional cloud and there are products such as Office 365 and Dynamic 365. My goal is very simple. What kind of social network is this? It is only A professional social network: LinkedIn."

Blending Microsoft productivity tools with people in LinkedIn and their work data can enrich all related services. For example, he said:

"If you connect Microsoft's Dynamics CRM 365 directly to the salesperson's LinkedIn network, it will become a more effective means of prospecting."

AI is everywhere

Although the technical scene presented by Microsoft is brand new, the AI â€‹â€‹story that the company has already spread word-of-mouth includes the creation of a spring conference in which agents, robots, and the ability to transform traditional products, such as office work, are the main themes. This is also consistent with Microsoft's recent efforts to make it ubiquitous, and I think that since February 2014, Nadella was named as the official opening of the iPad that Microsoft's CEO chaired in a few weeks and it has entered a new era.

Nadella said:

â€œMy goal has never been to write applications for the operating systems of other companies. I think about it in ways that arenâ€™t related to iOS, Android, or Windows. Itâ€™s a mobile-first, cloud-first worldview. For a long time, I From your own history, you can't assume that all high-capacity devices are at the center of all activities at a time."

This means that Windows does not have an infinite world of dominance, nor is it specified. iOS and Android will rule the world forever.

When Nadella began to spread the cloud first, the definition of mobile first, it is more clear that he is not just trying to ensure that Microsoft's most well-known applications can handle iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.

In the early years, for example, the company acquired Swiftkey, which is a third-party keyboard for Android and iOS. Now that it has been Androidized, it can use neural network technology to guess the text you are about to enter. Nadella said:

"We have shown that the keyboard is not related to the equipment but it is about you. This is a fundamental shift in the computing world."

We can be different

For Microsoft's artificial intelligence vision, nothing is more important than the way it uses Cortana as a proxy. If you agree, you can know quite a few things about you and then share it with specialized robots based on the principles you need to understand. Currently, the service has 133 million active users on Windows, iOS, and Android. Nadella explained:

"This is your data. Do not confuse it with those without your permission to use your data for advertising, merging with other data, or moving to other applications."

This concept is consistent with the overall focus of Microsoft's productivity, and it also helps Microsoft compete with other technology giants that apply AI to large amounts of data. Nadella told me:

â€œNow, we have seen people with similar strengths. One is Google, the other is Facebook. Some people we compete with, and some people we are working with. Every company has AI, but what did they do with AI? Even if we make the same choice, our methods will be different."

Via:FC