Hi everyone,

Microsoft Ignite happened yesterday and the name of the game was “Copilots” and “Agents”. Here’s the full list of news from the event, but I’ve summarized the main ones below in the deep dives.

Let’s get right into it.

In this issue:

• 🤝In Partnership: Unbiased daily briefings from 1440 Media

• 🤿Deep Dive: Copilot is expanding in business operations

• 🖼️AI Art: Examples of great and trending AI art

• 🤿Deep Dive: Open-weights multimodal model from Mistral

• ⚒️Tool Snapshots: Tools for AI, no-code, and productivity

• 🤿Deep Dive: Azure SQL integration into Fabric

• 📰Top News: News on AI, no-code, and productivity

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🤿 DEEP DIVE

Microsoft's AI Assistant Copilot's Expanding Role in Business Operations

Intelligence: Microsoft is working to empower every employee with its AI assistant, Copilot, aiming to transform every business process with agents built-in Microsoft Copilot Studio.

• Nearly 70% of Fortune 500 companies are already using Microsoft 365 Copilot, with organizations like Dow and Bank of Queensland Group reporting significant time and cost savings.

• Microsoft is introducing new agents to assist with SharePoint knowledge, language interpretation in Teams meetings, and employee self-service.

• The Copilot Control System is being launched to help IT professionals manage Copilot and its agents securely.

• Microsoft plans to include SharePoint Advanced Management and Microsoft Viva Insights at no additional charge for Copilot customers.

• Other new features include Quick Machine Recovery, part of the Windows Resiliency Initiative, and Windows 365 Link, a Cloud PC device.

🖼️ AI ART

Examples of great and trending AI art

🤿 DEEP DIVE

Pixtral Large, an Open-Weights Multimodal AI Model by Mistral AI

Intelligence: Mistral AI has released an Open-Weights multimodal model, Pixtral Large, designed to understand and generate responses across various data types such as text, images, and more.

• Pixtral Large is a 124 billion-parameter multimodal model, enhancing the capabilities of the existing model, Mistral Large 2.

• It introduces specialized cross-attention layers that fuse information across different modalities–text, images, and multimedia annotations.

• Pixtral Large's architecture allows for high-quality multimodal outputs and fine-tuning for specific tasks.

• Mistral AI recommends using the vLLM library for production-ready inference pipelines.

• The Open-Weights model gives researchers, startups, and smaller companies the chance to experiment and innovate without bearing high costs.

• Initial tests show improved accuracy in visual question answering (VQA), enhanced image descriptions, and strong performance on benchmarks such as COCO and VQAv2.

⚒️ TOOL SNAPSHOTS

Futuristic tools within AI, no-code, and productivity

• 🧠 Layer - Streamline tasks with innovative 'Second Brain' project management. Free to try.

• 📚 Follow - Supercharge and declutter your online reading experience. Free to use.

• ⏱️ Llama Life - ADHD-friendly app for focused, efficient task management. Free to try.

• 🚀 Height 2.0 - AI-powered tool for effortless project collaboration. Free option available.

• 📅 Done - Effortless weekly planning for enhanced productivity. Free to use.

🤿 DEEP DIVE

Microsoft's Integration of Azure SQL into Fabric for Enhanced AI Applications

Intelligence: Microsoft has announced the integration of its flagship transactional database, Azure SQL, into its unified data platform, Fabric, aiming to break down data silos and boost AI applications.

• Azure SQL integration into Fabric allows for a combination of real-time operational and historical data into an AI-ready layer called OneLake.

• This move is part of Microsoft's strategy to meet the increasing demand for accessible, high-quality data in enterprise AI workflows.

• Microsoft plans to extend support to other key transactional databases, including Cosmos DB and PostgreSQL.

• The integration is critical for enabling next-generation AI applications, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT.

• Fabric provides businesses with the ability to build AI applications that seamlessly leverage live transactional data, structured analytics, and unstructured insights.

• AI Skills, a new feature in Fabric, allows enterprises to interact with any data through natural language, simplifying the development of AI agents and democratizing data access.

📰 TOP NEWS

News on AI, no-code, automation, and productivity

🗣️ OpenAI's ChatGPT Launches Advanced Voice Mode on Web

Get ready to chat away with OpenAI's ChatGPT, right from your browser, as its Advanced Voice Mode rolls out to Plus, Enterprise, Teams, or Edu subscribers. Choose from nine cool characters and voices, like the confident and optimistic Ember. Oh, and it gets even better - free users will get a taste of the feature in the coming weeks.

💭 Google's Gemini Chatbot Unveils Memory Feature

Gemini, Google's chatbot, can now remember things about you. It keeps track of details from your conversations, like your work, personal life, and preferences, but this saved information won’t be used to train the AI. This feature is available to subscribers of Google’s $20/month Google One AI Premium plan.

🎛️ Microsoft's AI, Over 1,800 Models and Rising

Microsoft's new no-code and low-code capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot lets users create their own autonomous agents or deploy ready-made ones, across an expansive library of 1,800+ models. Whether it's crafting personalized agents in SharePoint or a project manager agent that automates Planner.

📚 Microsoft Scores Deal with HarperCollins to Train AI Models

Microsoft and HarperCollins just set the textbook example of an AI training deal. The tech giant gets to use nonfiction titles from the renowned book publisher to smarten up its AI models. But hold your horses - Microsoft's not penning the next bestseller, they’re just leveling up their AI know-how. Authors can choose to participate or sit this one out and ensure their books work smarter, not harder.

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