It’s time for a quick overview of Microsoft’s AI and partnership announcements made at its Inspire 2023 event.
Hang on tight, we’re going to go fast and cover a lot of ground.
1. Microsoft 365 Copilot price
We have good news and bad news for those interested in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft 365 Copilot is an LLM that can help you write, summarize, and build from Microsoft Office applications. It is a sort of integrated ChatGPT, with intelligence specific to each Office application.
The good news is that Microsoft 365 Copilot now has a price. It’s $30 per month, per user, for Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium customers.
The bad news? First of all, no general availability date has been announced. Second, mainstream users (for example, those of us with Microsoft 365 Family) shouldn’t be offered Copilot features anytime soon.
2. AI Capabilities for Selling
Sales-related activities and AI are a perfect marriage. If you think about it, sales activities often require the management of a very large set of situations, all slightly different. Sales agents change positions relatively quickly, and are therefore often less experienced than their jobs and clients require. In addition, more and more customers are expecting near-instant answers to their questions and those from technical support. AI can help with all of this.
To that end, Microsoft has a series of announcements related to sales automation. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights will provide data analytics and AI predictions for customer interaction data. This solution is also offered as part of a subscription program to facilitate the orchestration of the customer journey.
Microsoft Sales Copilot provides productivity and support tools for CRM users. The company’s new AIM program provides AI-guided assistance to transition customers from on-premises to cloud-based applications.
Finally, chatbots with Copilot will help companies install ChatGPT-like chatbots, but tailored specifically for customer service, containing the unique product and service insights that customers will need.
3. Improve business operations with AI capabilities
A company is actually a gigantic machine. Everything she does can be identified as a process. And if it can be identified as a process, a series of steps, it can be optimized. Automation and process mining are used to understand business operations, maximize process knowledge and reduce process complexity. In this way, organizations can find and eliminate bottlenecks, reduce costs and increase overall productivity.
Microsoft’s tool for doing this is called Power Automate Process Mining. It is intended to provide analysis and information on business processes to improve them. The big announcement at Inspire 2023 is the general availability of Power Automate Process Mining, coming in about two weeks, on August 1st.
AI features include tools that generate process insights to optimize existing processes, improve efficiency, and provide automation suggestions.
The company also offers “out-of-the-box” templates to speed up startup, deep integration of AI into process automation and analytics tasks, and a continuous process improvement environment. so that process analysis is not a one-off initiative, but can be integrated into the overall DNA of all business processes
Two useful resources are trial subscriptions that allow you to test the tool, and a getting started guide.
4. Azure Migration Assistance Program
Proving that not even AI can stop us from changing our product names, Microsoft has renamed its Azure Migration and Modernization Program (AMMP) to Azure Migrate and Modernization Program (Azure Migrate and Modernization Program). Modernize).
The shorter-named program offers features, including larger assessments and incentives for partners, as well as support for additional workloads such as high-performance computing (HPC), Oracle, Linux, SAP and migrations from mainframe.
Microsoft announced plans to make a “substantial investment to increase scale and availability” of Azure Migrate and Modernize.
5. $100 million in partner innovation support
Microsoft announced a “dedicated and incremental $100 million investment” in analytics and AI. The program’s goal is to help partners integrate AI solutions into applications, generate insights from analytics, and build custom cloud-native applications with AI capabilities, such as solutions custom AI co-piloting using data provided by the customer or supplier.
The Redmond-based giant plans to offer guided assistance to partners who are “exploring and building capabilities for unique business workloads” as they migrate, modernize, and deliver new solutions.
6. New Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program
Designed to leverage Microsoft AI and Microsoft Cloud initiatives with partners, the new AI Cloud Partner Program announced at Inspire 2023 is designed to help partners build AI-powered applications, modernize existing applications with new qualities of AI, and help companies move services to the cloud at a faster pace.
Because every major tech company now seems to need its own metaverse, Microsoft has announced that its industrial metaverse will be made available to the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program in early 2024.
Note that if you are already a Microsoft Partner, you will be transitioned into the new AI Cloud Partner Program immediately, or very soon. You don’t have to take any action to be onboarded and all your benefits will continue.
7. Appointments of New Solution Partners
The new AI Cloud Partner Program also offers select partners a special AI designation, which they can use in their marketing operations to create awareness that they have a certain level of expertise in offering AI-level services.
Microsoft also announced a series of other new designations that indicate other proven skills and specializations, including a Training Services designation, an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) designation, and a Support Services designation.
8. General Availability of the ISV Success Program
Last year, Microsoft announced that it was getting ready to launch its ISV Success program. This program is designed to help ISVs create “well-architected” applications, publish them on Microsoft Marketplace, and increase their sales. One of the main advantages of this program is access to Microsoft and Azure services for the amount of several thousand dollars.
Today, Microsoft announced the general availability of the ISV Success program. If you think your small programming company has what it takes, you can apply.
9. Marketplace sellers can collaborate more easily
Last month, Microsoft announced multiparty private offerings on the Microsoft Marketplace. At the time of the announcement, the program was in private preview. On the occasion of Inspire 2023, Microsoft announces that the multi-party private offers function is now available.
What are multi-party private offers? It’s a way for Microsoft partners to collaborate and bid together, using Microsoft’s commercial marketplace tools.
But, there is a but. First, the billing entity (the partner making the sale) must have a US tax profile. Marketplace partners using this feature can also indicate an intent to trade, allowing partners to meet before the sale to prepare for auctions and other customer interactions.
If you are considering large transactions with a large number of different vendors who need to come together to make offers and provide services, and you want to do so under the auspices of the marketplace, now you can.
10. Lead by example with Epic Systems
To show how its AI and partnership initiatives can work together in practical solutions, Microsoft highlights its relationship with healthcare provider Epic Systems. Epic designs software for doctors and hospitals.
Epic has integrated Microsoft’s AI in two ways. First, it added it to its patient information software, making it easier for doctors to find patient information, update patient reports, and respond to patient messages.
Epic has also integrated Nuance DAX Express, a voice transcription tool from the vendor known for Dragon Naturally Speaking. According to Nuance, this new tool is “a fully automated, workflow-integrated clinical documentation application that is the first to combine proven conversational and ambient AI with OpenAI’s latest and greatest model, GPT- 4”.
This tool can automatically record what doctors and patients say during visits, reducing the overall recording workload that most healthcare providers find tedious and time-consuming. Any reduction in paperwork allows clinicians to spend more time with patients and provide care.
Epic has incorporated both of these capabilities into its new offerings, which are being showcased at Inspire 2023.
Source: “ZDNet.com”