0:00

Microsoft at

0:02

middle age. From

0:04

American public media,

0:07

this is Marketplace

0:10

Tech. I'm

0:12

Megan McCarty

0:15

Carino. Microsoft

0:17

celebrates its 50th

0:19

anniversary this month. The company

0:21

started as a small software

0:24

startup co-founded by Bill Gates

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and Paul Allen in a

0:29

garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

0:31

And it went on to

0:33

revolutionize personal computing. business productivity,

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and now, it hopes, artificial

0:38

intelligence. With big investments in

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open AI, the maker of

0:43

chat-GPT, Microsoft has set about

0:45

integrating the technology across its

0:48

products, and it recently unveiled a

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slew of new upgrades to its

0:52

co-pilot AI assistant, like memory. So

0:54

it retains personal details like what

0:57

food you like or when your

0:59

kids' birthdays are, and can use

1:01

that information to make dinner reservations

1:03

for you or pick out a

1:06

gift. It's also added a vision

1:08

upgrade that allows the AI to

1:10

analyze photo and video and give

1:12

tips on, say, redecorating your kitchen.

1:15

We recently spoke with Yusuf Meti,

1:17

consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft,

1:19

to learn more about the new

1:21

features. I'm really excited about the

1:23

idea that Copilot can now

1:25

anticipate your needs and, you know, notify

1:27

you of things that are upcoming. It can

1:29

start to give you better answers.

1:32

So, for example, if you're always

1:34

trying to solve a particular problem,

1:36

you don't have to go back and ask

1:38

it every single time. Now you can say,

1:40

hey, remember that time I was trying to

1:42

change the oil on my car or I

1:45

was trying to configure something on my

1:47

PC. My PC. Copilot can say, oh yeah, this

1:49

is what we did last time. One of the

1:51

things it's beautiful is as you're walking around the world

1:53

if you have a question about something you're looking

1:55

at like a certain building and you want to

1:58

know the origins of it or you're looking

2:00

at a I was doing this

2:02

yesterday with some friends, you look

2:04

at a particular flower, you can

2:06

just, you know, pull up your

2:08

phone and say, tell me about

2:10

this flower, and Copala can answer

2:12

that for you as well. With

2:14

this greater personalization and memory of

2:16

personal details, I think always come

2:18

concerns about privacy, how is Microsoft

2:20

handling the security of, you know,

2:22

this intimate personal data? For sure,

2:24

privacy and security are top of

2:26

mind for us. I would say

2:28

we start with that as the

2:30

key feature. Because as we've learned,

2:32

it's more important that people trust

2:34

the technology than it is any

2:36

particular neat thing that you can

2:38

do with it. So on things

2:40

like memory, you're completely in control.

2:42

If you don't want to have

2:44

copilot remember things, you can just

2:46

turn it off. If you want

2:48

to selectively delete things that you've

2:50

done, you can do that as

2:52

well. With things like vision. those

2:54

are not on by default. You

2:56

have to manually go turn those

2:58

on and then we'll have a

3:00

very prominent notification that co-pilot vision

3:02

is on so that you know

3:04

when to turn it off when

3:06

you're done using it. And where

3:08

are these kind of requests being

3:10

processed? You know, all of the

3:12

various tasks, are they going to

3:14

the cloud? Are they on device?

3:16

Yeah, so the way it works

3:18

is when you initiate a co-pilot

3:20

action. For example, You know, my

3:22

wife's birthday. Essentially, what happens is

3:24

Copilot uses the browser, your browser,

3:27

to then essentially go to the

3:29

website and then Copilot tries to

3:31

navigate and make reservation. So it'll

3:33

go to the website, it'll go

3:35

to the website, it'll find the

3:37

links for reservation, and it'll use

3:39

AI to figure out what's there.

3:41

And then as appropriate, it'll check

3:43

back in with you. So when

3:45

the time comes to, for example,

3:47

fill out a capture. And when

3:49

it comes times to, you know,

3:51

actually book the thing, if you,

3:53

for example, need to enter your

3:55

credit card, Copot will tell you,

3:57

hey, you need to take over

3:59

and enter your credit card information.

4:01

So this kind of agentic AI

4:03

personal. AI, it is all the

4:05

rage now, and there are kind

4:07

of a lot of similar features

4:09

in products out there, including even

4:11

from, I think, Microsoft's partner, Open

4:13

AI. What do you think differentiates

4:15

co-pilot from the others out there?

4:17

Well, one of the things we're

4:19

doing on Microsoft is we actually

4:21

have two co-pilots. We have co-pilot

4:23

for your consumer life, and we

4:25

have Microsoft 365 co-pilot for your

4:27

work life. For the Microsoft 365,

4:29

we can provide enterprise security security.

4:31

We have compliance with the data

4:33

in your enterprise. It can access

4:35

your corporate graph data so that

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you get very unique capabilities there.

4:39

On the consumer side, we lean

4:41

more to providing a little bit

4:43

more personality, a little bit more

4:45

what we think of as IQ

4:47

support, but EQ support, meaning it

4:49

can support you with the environment

4:51

as a whole, even beyond just

4:54

answering questions. So the warmth, the

4:56

personality, the support for you. It's

4:58

a much richer experience and when

5:00

you use it you really can

5:02

tell the difference between it and

5:04

tools that are one-size-fits-all. We'll be

5:06

right back. You're listening to Marketplace

5:08

Tech. I'm Megan McCarty Carino. We're

5:10

back with Yusuf Meti, consumer chief

5:12

marketing officer at Microsoft. Microsoft would

5:14

seem to have kind of a

5:16

big scaling advantage here with the

5:18

office suite already being so widely

5:20

adopted. But given that scale, I

5:22

mean, what is the cost of

5:24

adding all these AI features and

5:26

sort of training users to be

5:28

more and more reliant on advanced

5:30

AI to accomplish tasks like search

5:32

that were much cheaper before you

5:34

add an LLLM in? Yeah, that's

5:36

a good question. There's two parts

5:38

to it. First, I would say

5:40

on the proactive side, you were

5:42

just so much more efficient using

5:44

copilot than say search. because you

5:46

can get right to the answer

5:48

you want. You don't have to

5:50

go through a bunch of links

5:52

and eventually find what you want

5:54

and frankly the accuracy is just

5:56

that much better. So the time

5:58

savings for you as an individual

6:00

is significant. From a cost of

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building it, we use a variety

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of different tools with Copilot and

6:06

a variety of different AI models

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underneath the covers. So we're able

6:10

to optimize the cost to serve

6:12

and provide that functionality. And the

6:14

way that technology is just moving

6:16

at today's pace, we're ever increasing

6:18

the ability to reduce the costs

6:20

for offering these great capabilities for

6:23

people. Let's talk about another big

6:25

cost, which is environmental. Microsoft famously

6:27

has a goal to get to

6:29

carbon negative by 2030, and all

6:31

this AI uses an incredible amount

6:33

of energy. How do you square

6:35

that? Well, we're very focused on

6:37

our goals and we're making great

6:39

progress. So we feel good about

6:41

making our goals for 2030. Part

6:43

of how we do that is...

6:45

We really, as I said before,

6:47

take advantage of a number of

6:49

technologies to reduce the cost, to

6:51

reduce the power consumption, to answer

6:53

those. Some of that is more

6:55

advanced, sophisticated models. Some of it

6:57

is we're able to run some

6:59

of the AI locally on your

7:01

device on your computer. And so

7:03

you don't actually have to use

7:05

all of that power in the

7:07

cloud. You can use your local

7:09

PC and that's what we have

7:11

with these co-pilot plus PCs that

7:13

can run AI locally on your

7:15

device. the first 50 years of

7:17

Microsoft. How do you define its

7:19

legacy? And how are these new

7:21

tools kind of bringing the company

7:23

into the next 50 years of

7:25

that legacy? Well, one of the,

7:27

you know, the visions and dreams

7:29

Bill Gates had was really to

7:31

build Microsoft as essentially a software

7:33

factory so that it could produce

7:35

all sorts of software at increasingly...

7:37

more accessible, more inexpensive ways, essentially

7:39

building the platform for the software

7:41

industry. And now as we look

7:43

forward, we're kind of back to

7:45

the same roots. We want to

7:47

build the platform for AI development

7:50

for the world. We're building the

7:52

AI tools that will allow anyone

7:54

to be a great creator, have

7:56

anyone be someone that can build

7:58

the next big AI software. application

8:00

or computer experience. And so we're

8:02

excited that in the next 50

8:04

years, at this place in time

8:06

and this place with the technology

8:08

development, that is going to happen

8:10

and will be an empowering company

8:12

in that world. That was use

8:14

of Meti at Microsoft. Microsoft

8:22

held its 50th anniversary festivities last

8:24

Friday at its headquarters in Redmond

8:26

Washington, but the event was interrupted

8:28

by a couple of employees protesting

8:31

Microsoft's connection to the war in

8:33

Gaza. An associated press investigation earlier

8:35

this year found AI models from

8:38

Microsoft and Open AI had been

8:40

used as part of an Israeli

8:42

military program to select bombing targets.

8:45

Some employees also rallied outside the

8:47

event. Microsoft said in a statement,

8:49

quote, we provide many avenues for

8:52

all voices to be heard. Importantly,

8:54

we ask that this be done

8:56

in a way that does not

8:59

cause a business disruption. If that

9:01

happens, we ask participants to relocate.

9:03

We are committed to ensuring our

9:06

business practices uphold the highest standards.

9:08

The AP reported that two employees

9:10

who interrupted the event had lost

9:12

access to their work accounts, though

9:15

it wasn't clear if they were

9:17

fired. Daniel Shin produced this episode.

9:19

I'm Megan McCarty Carino, and that's

9:22

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