Two things can be true at the same time.
In the case of AI, it is absolutely true that the industry is moving incredibly fast and evolving quickly. It’s also true that hundreds of thousands of customers are using Microsoft AI technology today and, by making early bets on the platform, are seeing big benefits now and future-proofing their ability to benefit from the next big wave of AI improvements.
Microsoft are announcing about 80 new products and features, including new capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot, additions to the Copilot + AI stack and new Copilot+ devices offerings. Underpinning each of these innovations is our commitment to security. Since launching the Secure Future Initiative (SFI) one year ago, Microsoft have made security the No. 1 job of every employee at Microsoft, dedicated 34,000 engineers to this focus and, at Ignite, Microsoft will announce innovations that are rooted in our SFI principles: secure by design, secure by default and secure operations.
Copilot momentum
Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work, and we have seen the momentum grow as more organisations are moving to Copilot and deploying it to great success. All up, nearly 70% of the Fortune 500 now use Microsoft 365 Copilot.
That echoes an industry trend: A recent IDC study showed that generative AI is on the rise, with 75% adoption among companies surveyed in 2024. In addition, for every $1 invested, companies are realising a return of $3.70, and leaders are saying they are realising as much as a $10 return, according to the study.
The investments that Microsoft has made in Copilot are paying dividends for our customers.
Boosting productivity with Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft is continuing to supercharge productivity with new capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot designed to help simplify the workday.
Copilot Actions, now in private preview, enable anyone to automate everyday tasks with simple, fill-in-the-blank prompts, whether it’s getting a daily summary of meeting actions in Microsoft Teams, compiling weekly reports or getting an email upon return from vacation that summarises missed meetings, chats and emails.
Anyone can easily set up Actions right in their Microsoft 365 app, allowing users to focus on more impactful work, save time and boost productivity.
Copilot + AI Stack
The Copilot stack empowers users to build more ambitious products by leveraging advanced technology at each layer of the stack. To create a unified experience where customers can design, customise and manage AI applications and agents, we are introducing Azure AI Foundry, which gives customers access to all existing Azure AI services and tooling, plus new capabilities like:
- Azure AI Foundry SDK, now available in preview, provides a unified toolchain for designing, customising and managing AI apps and agents with enterprise-grade control and customisation. With tools that help organisations responsibly scale their applications, Foundry also provides 25 prebuilt app templates and a simplified coding experience they can access from familiar tools like GitHub, Visual Studio and Copilot Studio.
- Azure AI Foundry portal (formerly Azure AI Studio), now available in preview, is a comprehensive visual user interface to help developers discover AI models, services and tools. With a new management center experience that brings essential subscription information into a single dashboard, the portal also helps IT admins, operations and compliance teams manage AI applications at scale.
- Azure AI Agent Service, coming soon to preview, will enable professional developers to orchestrate, deploy and scale enterprise-ready agents to automate business processes.