Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it would be strengthening its artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure in northern Italy by investing 4.3 billion euros ($4.8 billion) over the next two years.
TakeAway Points:
- Microsoft intends to invest 4.3 billion euros ($4.8 billion) over the next two years to fortify its cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in northern Italy.
- Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith met Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Wednesday, said that the government welcomed an investment that would strengthen Italy’s digital role in the Mediterranean.
- Microsoft has given its consumer AI assistant, Copilot, a friendlier voice with the most recent version.
- The chatbot can now analyse web pages for customers while they surf.
Microsoft to invest in AI and cloud in Italy
Microsoft said in a statement the investment would be the U.S. company’s largest in Italy to date. It will make the cloud region of Italy North one of the biggest Microsoft data centres in Europe, working as a data hub also for the Mediterranean and north Africa.
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith met Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Wednesday, the PM’s office said in a note, adding the government welcomed an investment that would strengthen Italy’s digital role in the Mediterranean.
On Monday, Meloni met U.S. fund BlackRock Inc. chief Larry Fink, who travelled to Rome to discuss possible investments in data centres and to support energy infrastructure.
BlackRock and Microsoft announced last month a fund worth more than $30 billion to invest in AI-focused data centres, AI supply chains, and energy sourcing, saying the vehicle would first look at the U.S. market and then at U.S. partner countries.
Demand for AI and cloud services is growing fast, with firms in sectors as varied as gaming and e-commerce differentiating offerings through the integration of custom AI models—programs that employ pattern recognition to make decisions.
Microsoft revamps AI Copilot with new voice and reasoning capabilities
Microsoft has given its consumer Copilot, an artificial intelligence assistant, a more amiable voice in its latest update, with the chatbot also capable of analyzing web pages for interested users as they browse.
The U.S. software maker now has “an entire army” of creative directors—among them psychologists, novelists, and comedians—finessing the tone and style of Copilot to distinguish it, Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Microsoft AI, told Reuters in an interview.
In one demonstration of the updated Copilot, a consumer asked what house-warming gift to buy at a grocery store for a friend who did not drink wine. After some back-and-forth, Copilot said aloud, “Italian (olive) oils are the hot stuff right now. Tuscan’s my go-to. Super peppery.”
The feature rollout, starting Tuesday, is one of the first that Suleyman has overseen since Microsoft created his division in March to focus on consumer products and technology research.
Long identified with business software, Microsoft has had a much harder road in the consumer realm. Its Bing search engine, for instance, is still dwarfed by Google.
Suleyman is hoping for a bigger splash with Copilot, which launched last year in a crowded field of AI chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
Copilot’s voice capabilities
Copilot’s newly fashioned voice capabilities make it seem much more of an active listener, giving verbal cues like “cool” and “huh,” Suleyman said.
Underlying the product are Microsoft AI, or “MAI,” models, plus a technology suite from partner OpenAI, Suleyman said.
Suleyman added that consumers who spend $20 monthly for Copilot Pro can start testing a “Think Deeper” feature that reasons through choices, like whether to move to one city or another.
He said an additional test feature for paying subscribers, Copilot Vision, amounts to “digital pointing” – the ability for users to talk to AI about what they see in a Microsoft Edge browser. Consumers have to opt in, and the content they view will not be saved or used to train AI, Microsoft said.
These updates represent “glimmers” of AI that can be an “ever-present confidant, in your corner,” Suleyman said. It’s a vision he articulated as CEO of Inflection AI, whose top talent Microsoft poached in a closely watched deal this year.
Suleyman said that eventually, Copilot will learn context from consumers’ Word documents, Windows desktops, and even their gaming consoles if they grant permission.
Asked what Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder, thinks of the company’s AI efforts, Suleyman said Gates was excited.
“He’s always asking me about when Copilot can read and parse his emails. It’s one of his favourite ones. We’re on the case.” Suleyman said.