Our 2024 Environmental Sustainability Report

Accelerating innovation and partnership for people and the planet

Four years ago, Microsoft committed that, by 2030, we would become carbon-negative, water-positive, zero waste, and protect more land than we use. Since that announcement, we have seen major changes in the technology sector and our understanding of what it will take to meet our climate goals. New technologies, including generative AI, hold promise for new innovations that can help address the climate crisis. At the same time, the infrastructure and electricity needed for these technologies create new challenges for meeting sustainability commitments across the tech sector. As we take stock as a company in 2024, we remain resolute in our commitment to meet our climate goals and to empower others with the technology needed to build a more sustainable future read more…

Introducing GPT-4o: OpenAI’s new flagship multimodal model is now in preview on Azure

A step forward in generative AI for Azure OpenAI Service

GPT-4o offers a shift in how AI models interact with multimodal inputs. By seamlessly combining text, images, and audio, GPT-4o provides a richer, more engaging user experience.

Launch highlights: Immediate access and what you can expect

Azure OpenAI Service customers can explore GPT-4o’s extensive capabilities through a preview playground in Azure OpenAI Studio starting today in two regions in the US. This initial release focuses on text and vision inputs to provide a glimpse into the model’s potential, paving the way for further capabilities like audio and video read more…

Roadmap to empowering your workforce with AI: How Moody’s copilot ignited AI innovation

It’s time to turn the hype about AI at your company into real outcomes. While many companies spent the past year talking about AI, a team of innovators at Moody’s, a leading risk assessment firm, developed and quickly launched their custom enterprise copilot to thousands of employees. The approach drove productivity and innovation across the company and led to a series of AI product launches throughout the year read more..

Announcing Data Wrangler: Code-centric viewing and cleaning of tabular data in Visual Studio Code

Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of the Data Wrangler extension for Visual Studio Code! Data Wrangler is a free extension that offers data viewing and cleaning that is directly integrated into VS Code and the Jupyter extension. It provides a rich user interface to view and analyze your data, show insightful column statistics and visualizations, and automatically generate Pandas code as you clean and transform the data. We want to thank all the early adopters who tried out the extension preview over the past year, as your valuable feedback has been crucial to this release read more…

Microsoft and LinkedIn release the 2024 Work Trend Index on the state of AI at work

One year ago, generative AI burst onto the scene and for the first time since the smartphone, people began to change the way they interact with technology. People are bringing AI to work at an unexpected scale — and now the big question is, how’s it going?

As AI becomes ubiquitous in the workplace, employees and businesses alike are under extreme pressure. The pace and intensity of work, which accelerated during the pandemic, has not eased, so employees are bringing their own AI to work. Leaders agree AI is a business imperative — and feel the pressure to show immediate ROI — but many lack a plan and vision to go from individual impact to applying AI to drive the bottom line.

At the same time, the labor market is set to shift and there’s a new AI economy. While some professionals worry AI will replace their job, the data tells a more nuanced story — of a hidden talent shortage, more employees eyeing a career change, and a massive opportunity for those willing to skill up read more…

Leading in the era of AI: How Microsoft’s platform differentiation and Copilot empowerment are driving AI Transformation

A Copilot on every desk, every device and across every role is core to Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. By bolstering the services customers know and love with our Copilot capabilities across the Microsoft Cloud, we are enabling zero-shot innovation — the ability to effectively gain value out of the box — for their businesses to increase productivity, creativity, and inclusive collaboration. ISVs, digital natives, startups, and the rest of our partner ecosystem are leveraging our Copilot stack to build AI solutions that are reshaping business processes across industries. We continue co-innovating directly with customers on our open cloud platform to bend the curve on innovation by identifying AI design patterns; then integrating and applying data to solve their most pressing challenges faster and more efficiently than ever before. Underpinning it all is the need for a strong cybersecurity foundation and the work we are doing to ensure this critical imperative is met. No one is immune from bad actors, and we remain committed to transparency and trust in our approach to protecting customer and partner data. By empowering organizations with industry-leading cloud and responsible AI solutions, paired with our focus on security, we are helping them unlock opportunities that deliver pragmatic business outcomes. I am proud of the work we have done this past quarter that exemplifies our approach to enabling AI Transformation, and the success of our customers and partners across industries who have embraced it read more…

Leading in the era of AI: How Microsoft’s platform differentiation and Copilot empowerment are driving AI Transformation

A Copilot on every desk, every device and across every role is core to Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. By bolstering the services customers know and love with our Copilot capabilities across the Microsoft Cloud, we are enabling zero-shot innovation — the ability to effectively gain value out of the box — for their businesses to increase productivity, creativity and inclusive collaboration. ISVs, digital natives, startups and the rest of our partner ecosystem are leveraging our Copilot stack to build AI solutions that are reshaping business processes across industries read more…

Microsoft Joins Thorn and All Tech Is Human to enact strong child safety commitments for generative AI

While millions of people use AI to supercharge their productivity and expression, there is the risk that these technologies are abused. Building on our longstanding commitment to online safety, Microsoft has joined Thorn, All Tech is Human, and other leading companies in their effort to prevent the misuse of generative AI technologies to perpetrate, proliferate, and further sexual harms against children. Today, Microsoft is committing to implementing preventative and proactive principles into our generative AI technologies and products.

This initiative, led by Thorn, a nonprofit dedicated to defending children from sexual abuse, and All Tech Is Human, an organization dedicated to collectively tackling tech and society’s complex problems read more..

Introducing the new Solutions Partner for Training Services designation

Today’s blog is from guest contributor Geoff Hirsch, Senior Director, Microsoft WW Training Services Partner (TSP) Channel.

Microsoft Training Services partners play a crucial role in enhancing the skills and capabilities of both IT professionals and developers. To help recognize this unique skillset, we are excited to announce the general availability of the Solutions Partner for Training Services designation, specifically for Microsoft Training Services partners focused on providing technical training services and empowering customers with the knowledge and skills to fully leverage Microsoft AI and cloud capabilities.

Aligned to Microsoft solution areas, Solutions Partner designations, and specializations help partners differentiate themselves in the market. They assist customers in easily identifying and engaging with partners who have a breadth of capabilities and a proven track record in solution areas with high customer demand and opportunities to scale. The Solutions Partner for Training Services designation is part of our ongoing commitment to support and recognize the expertise of our partners, and is the latest Solutions Partner offering to be added to the solution area and certified software designations already in the market read more..,

A new way to find AI-ready Microsoft Training Services Partners

If you feel like the pace of change is making it harder to maintain a staff with the right skills, you’re among the 66% of IT decision-makers who reported dealing with skills gaps on their teams in 2023.1 With AI and Microsoft Copilot advancing every day, you and your team members need a trusted source for fast, targeted, and effective training with the expertise to deliver the latest up-to-the-minute skills. There’s no source better prepared than Microsoft Training Services Partners (TSP). In as little as under a week, TSPs can get team members trained in a new skill or role to maximize on emerging technologies such as AI engineering and other roles.

Filling skills gaps in an accelerated world with new TSP designation   

We are excited to announce the Solutions Partner for Training Services designation for organizations delivering technical training on Microsoft Cloud technologies. Qualified partners receive designation-specific badges distinguishing their services from other partner types within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. These badges greatly enhance discoverability, making it easier for you to identify partners with unique expertise and a proven track record of delivering quality training. These new badges reflect updated accreditations a TSP has earned to validate their ability to impart necessary skills. The badges mean that this TSP can deliver the right training and credentials to ensure everyone in your organization is ready for tomorrow’s advances read more…