Despite all the buzz about how revolutionary generative artificial intelligence is, some of its earliest commercial applications may be much more mundane, such as structuring a PowerPoint slide, summarizing a call, or creating to-do lists.
With open-ended discussions and more advanced iterations of internet search, the consumer internet is now home to many of the first widespread applications of generative AI. But, this week’s statements by Microsoft and Google about integrating A.I. into the standard tools used by software engineers and knowledge workers demonstrate how the most obvious moneymakers in the business world may be the routine but highly profitable software.
Microsoft has made a number of announcements outlining its aim to integrate artificial intelligence into every aspect of company operations. With the debut of the ChatGPT chatbot at the end of November, the start-up OpenAI, whose partnership it has invested $13 billion in, managed to attract the attention of the general public. Microsoft also incorporated OpenAI’s models into its Bing search engine a little more than a month ago.
The decision made on Thursday directly affects some of Microsoft’s biggest companies, including software items like its Word, Excel, and Outlook suite. Microsoft’s most recent quarter saw sales of $11.8 billion from Office products and related cloud services, and $3.2 billion from search and news advertising.