Microsoft revamps Copilot offerings with new pricing and features

Microsoft has announced significant changes to its AI-powered Copilot services, introducing a free business chat option and new pricing for consumer subscriptions. The company is launching Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, a rebranded version of its business AI chat service that includes access to AI agents on a pay-per-use basis. According to Microsoft’s chief marketing officer …

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Microsoft releases Phi-4 AI model with open-source license

Microsoft has made its Phi-4 AI model freely available as open-source software on the Hugging Face platform. As reported by Carl Franzen, the model was previously only accessible through Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry platform. The 14-billion-parameter AI model has demonstrated strong capabilities in mathematical reasoning and language understanding tasks, outperforming larger models in specific benchmarks. …

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Report: Microsoft and OpenAI define AGI through profit metrics

Microsoft and OpenAI have established a financial benchmark for artificial general intelligence (AGI) in their partnership agreement, according to a report by The Information. The companies agreed that AGI will only be considered achieved when OpenAI develops AI systems generating at least $100 billion in annual profits. This definition differs significantly from traditional technical and …

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Report: Microsoft diversifies AI models for 365 Copilot

Microsoft is expanding beyond OpenAI’s technology for its Microsoft 365 Copilot service, according to a Reuters report by Anna Tong and Krystal Hu. The company is working to integrate both internal and third-party AI models to reduce costs and improve performance. While OpenAI remains a partner for advanced AI models, Microsoft aims to make the …

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Microsoft exec explains AI safety approach and AGI limitations

Microsoft’s chief product officer for responsible AI, Sarah Bird, detailed the company’s strategy for safe AI development in an interview with Financial Times reporter Cristina Criddle. Bird emphasized that while generative AI has transformative potential, artificial general intelligence (AGI) still lacks fundamental capabilities and remains a non-priority for Microsoft. The company focuses instead on augmenting …

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Harvard releases public domain book dataset for AI training

Harvard University has launched a comprehensive AI training dataset containing nearly one million public domain books. According to technology journalist Kate Knibbs writing for Wired, the project is funded by Microsoft and OpenAI. The Institutional Data Initiative leads this effort to democratize access to high-quality training data for AI development. The collection, which is five …

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Microsoft’s Phi-4 AI model achieves high performance with fewer resources

Microsoft has introduced a new AI model that delivers superior mathematical reasoning capabilities while using significantly less computing power than larger competitors. According to Michael Nuñez’s report in VentureBeat, the 14-billion-parameter Phi-4 model outperforms larger systems like Google’s Gemini Pro 1.5. The model excels particularly in mathematical problem-solving, achieving top scores on standardized math competition …

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Microsoft Recall fails to protect sensitive data in testing

Microsoft’s new Recall feature, designed to create searchable timeline of PC activities, shows significant privacy vulnerabilities despite its promised security measures. According to testing by Avram Piltch from Tom’s Hardware, the feature’s “Filter sensitive information” setting failed to block the capture of credit card numbers and social security information in several common scenarios. While Recall …

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Microsoft introduces waterless cooling for data centers

Microsoft has developed a new data center cooling system that eliminates the need for fresh water consumption, according to a report by Dina Bass for Bloomberg. The innovative “closed loop” design, launched in August 2024, will replace conventional cooling methods that typically use 125 million liters of water annually per facility. The company plans to …

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Microsoft AI CEO predicts AGI within 5-10 years

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman believes artificial general intelligence (AGI) could be achievable within the next five to ten years, according to an interview with Nilay Patel from The Verge. Suleyman emphasizes that AGI should be understood as a general-purpose learning system capable of performing well across all human-level training environments, rather than as superintelligence. …

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