Microsoft named AI development as one of its top priorities during its Q1 earnings call, which took place on April 25.
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate
American multinational tech company Microsoft named artificial intelligence (AI) development as one of its top priorities during its Q1 earnings call, which took place on April 25.
Microsoft is highly focused on AI
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella briefly commented on consumer AI features, stating:
“As we look towards a future where chat becomes a new way for people to seek information, consumers have real choice … with Azure-powered chat entry points across Bing, Edge, Windows and OpenAI ChatGPT.”
Nadella’s other statements primarily focused on AI products aimed at enterprise customers. He asserted that Microsoft has the “most powerful AI infrastructure” and said that OpenAI, Nvidia, and other AI startups are using this infrastructure.
Nadella explained that Microsoft provides enterprise users access to ChatGPT and GPT-4 through its Azure platform. He said more than 2,500 customers — including Coursera, Grammarly, Mercedes-Benz, and Shell— use the Azure OpenAI service.
Furthermore, Snap Inc. — the company behind Snapchat — and Shopify are using OpenAI’s API, which Azure powers, Nadella said.
He also discussed Microsoft’s code suggestion tool, GitHub Copilot. In just three months, he said that Copilot for Business had seen registrations from over 10,000 organizations — including Coca-Cola, General Motors (GM), and Duolingo.
He did not describe the Athena AI chip, which is said to be in use at Microsoft.
Revenues increased compared to last year
Microsoft’s exact revenue from AI products is unavailable. However, the company’s latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports specific revenue data.
That filing suggests that Intelligent Cloud — which includes many of Microsoft’s AI-related services — produced $22 billion in revenue in Q1 this year. This is up from $19 billion in Q1 of 2022.
The SEC filing also says that the company saw $9.5 billion in operating income from Intelligent Cloud in Q1 this year. This is up from $8.4 billion in that category in Q1 2022.
Furthermore, the filing also indicates that the company acquired the healthcare AI firm Nuance Communications for $18 billion in March.
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