Microsoft on Wednesday announced new artificial intelligence \nfeatures and functionality for several of its flagship products and \nservices, including Office 365, Cortana and Bing, at an event in San \nFrancisco. Harry Shum, EVP of Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and \nResearch, demonstrated some of the new capabilities<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Building on the progress the company has made in integrating AI over \nthe past year, the new enhancements are designed to help users perform \nincreasingly complex and complicated tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAI has come a long way in the ability to find information, but \nmaking sense of that information is the real challenge,\u201d said Kristina \nBehr, a partner design and planning program manager with Microsoft\u2019s \nArtificial Intelligence and Research group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the advances, machine reading comprehension, will improve an \nAI-based system\u2019s understanding of context \u2014 for example, recognizing \nthat one\u2019s cousin is a family member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pearson Education \u2013 Click For More<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Search Benefits
\nBing users will get more personalized answers, Microsoft said, such as \nrestaurant recommendations based on travel destinations, or a greater \nvariety of answers to offer different perspectives on a topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AI guidance might help users figure out the exact questions they want\n to ask if their search queries are too vague to deliver meaningful \nresults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bing will utilize visual search as a way to help people seek \ninformation about items or objects in photos. This functionality will \ncomprise the use of object recognition along with machine reading \ncomprehension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Office AI
\nMicrosoft announced improvements in AI integration with its Office 365 \ntools as well. The spreadsheet program Excel, for example, will employ \nmachine learning as a way to analyze data and predict trends via pivot \ntables and charts. The new AI tools also will be able to extract \ninsights from smaller sets of data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Importantly, use of the new AI functionality won\u2019t require more \nadvanced training in Excel for users to determine which sets of data \nshould be used to gain deeper insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More Conscious Cortana
\nMicrosoft\u2019s virtual assistant Cortana will get an upgrade as well, \nallowing it to make use of machine reading comprehension to summarize \nsearch results. Cortana also will be able to sort through a user\u2019s \nemails to identify the most important ones and even read them aloud \nduring a commute, for example. Use of that functionality will extend to \nemails from multiple accounts, including on competing services such as \nGmail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cortana also has been enhanced with \u201cskills chaining,\u201d allowing it to\n suggest additions to one\u2019s calendar after tickets have been booked, for\n example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Astute AI
\nThese AI advances likely will be subtle and may go unnoticed by many users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAI will creep more and more into our lives,\u201d said Roger Entner, principal analyst at Recon Analytics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIdeally it will help to make tools like Bing, Cortana and Office 365 more userful,\u201d he told TechNewsWorld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the good AI, not the Terminator AI,\u201d noted Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn most cases, AI functions will be transparent to users just like they are in search engines today,\u201d he told TechNewsWorld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The AI functionality simply makes the tools more efficient and useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThink of this as reducing some of the simple tasks \u2014 not the human \npart of the equation,\u201d McGregor suggested, \u201cand think about intelligent \ndigital assistants and word predictors or spell checkers that are more \nreliable than the ones we have today. This will be the most common form \nof AI \u2014 embedded solutions that make the tools we use better, from \nsearch engines to scientific research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How Far to Take It
\nAlthough the most extreme AI danger may lie in the rise of machines that\n overpower human controls, there are more subtle menaces to consider \nwhen it comes to the place it will take in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is upon us to draw a line,\u201d said Entner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExamples like Google and its all-encompassing \u2018data kraken\u2019 make it \nclear how blurry the line is between really useful and really creepy \u2014 \nlike when your Android phone constantly asks you if you are actually \nshopping at the store you are at,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cBig brother [could \nbe] watching all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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