Microsoft announced an exciting list of game-changing innovations at its annual partner event, Microsoft Inspire 2023. The company recognized collaboration as a key component of Microsoft’s success and celebrated its growing partner ecosystem and its importance in making new technology available to customers in today’s AI-focused world.
“Microsoft Inspire is a chance to acknowledge the role our partners play in customer success and to share new opportunities and ways to engage with Microsoft products,” said Peter Maquera, Microsoft Philippines Chief Executive Officer. “We’re excited to share even more AI-powered solutions and show how Microsoft partners can apply these AI innovations across their organizations in a variety of ways.”
Microsoft underscored the value of the Microsoft Cloud through three key areas, showcasing a number of new releases that enable customers to further accelerate AI transformation, drive success, and fuel business growth and profitability—all in partnership with Microsoft.
Introducing the Bing Chat Enterprise
Microsoft introduced the Bing Chat Enterprise, which gives organizations AI-powered chat for work with commercial data protection. Through this, what goes in and out remains protected, giving commercial customers managed access to better answers, greater efficiency, and new ways to be creative.
Bing Chat Enterprise will start rolling out this year in preview to organizations licensed for Microsoft 365 E5, E3, Business Premium, and Business Standard at no additional cost. Bing Chat Enterprise will also available as a stand-alone subscription in the future for a minimal fee per user, per month.
Announcing Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing
Microsoft 365 has been met with much intrigue and excitement since announcements made earlier in the year. Microsoft 365 Copilot is integrated into the apps millions of people use every day. Copilot helps users jump-start their tasks across multiple Microsoft applications—boosting creativity in Word, analyzing data in Excel, designing presentations in PowerPoint, summarizing meetings in Teams, and so much more. Now, Microsoft has officially announced the pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot. It will be available for $30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium customers when generally available.
Empowering sellers and customer service agents with AI
Microsoft also recognized that sellers need to have as many options in their toolboxes as possible. The company has added more functionality to Microsoft Sales Copilot directly within Dynamics 365 Sales, such as AI-generated opportunity summary, contextualized email drafts and meeting preparations.
Moreover, Microsoft highlighted how it empowers customer service departments with tailored chatbots built with Copilot in Power Virtual Agents. Within minutes, businesses can train a chatbot using natural language to reference internal and external knowledge sources, customer service applications, and web data via Bing Search.
Implementing Process Mining in Power Automate
Organizations often have a difficult time identifying blockages in their workflows and how to clear them. To address these challenges, Microsoft announced the general availability of next-generation AI features within Power Automate Process Mining, providing customers with AI-powered insights to optimize existing processes and drive efficiencies through low-code automation. With Process Mining, users can understand what is happening across their business, use AI that generates insights, app and automation suggestions, and use Power Platform to quickly build the solutions they need.
Improving Azure capabilities and increasing investments
Microsoft also announced a substantial investment to increase the scale and availability of Azure Migrate & Modernize. It also launched Azure Innovate, an all-new dedicated investment in response to the heightened demands for analytics and AI. According to the company, these new offerings have expanded scenario coverage and offer richer incentives and support for everything from fast, frictionless migrations to building new AI-powered apps.
Expanding strategic collaboration with Epic Systems
Microsoft also expanded its strategic collaboration with Epic, a leading healthcare software company, where both organizations are using the power of AI to help clinicians spend less time on administrative functions and more time on providing quality care. Epic has integrated Azure OpenAI Service into its electronic health record software to provide multiple solutions. Epic has also incorporated Nuance DAX Express, to help providers further lessen the administrative workloads that lead to burnout, expand access to care for patients, and enhance healthcare outcomes.
Launching the new Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program
Microsoft launched the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, which empowers every partner to deliver customer value while leveraging Microsoft AI and the Microsoft Cloud. Through the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, Microsoft provides partners with a comprehensive portfolio of investments for all partner business models, at every stage of maturity.
“We are excited about all the announcements from this year’s Microsoft Inspire, and this is just the start,” said Maquera. “Moving forward, we aim to further our commitment to accelerating AI transformation, driving customer success, and fueling partner business growth and profitability.”
