Microsoft Has Plans to Shove Its Bing AI Into Word, PowerPoint, and More

 

Microsoft has AI fever, and apparently the only treatment is sticking its large language model, ChatGPT-like chatbot into practically every end-user program it has going.

According to a Friday report from The Verge citing unnamed sources with knowledge of Microsoft’s plans, the Redmond, Washington company is getting close to sharing more about its plans to integrate its OpenAI tech into Office apps. This apparently includes Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook, just to name a few. We may even see a demo of this AI in action, though with how quickly the tech giant has been in bringing its AI-powered search to the public, it might not be long now.

Last month, The Information reported that Microsoft was discussing incorporating the OpenAI into its Office apps, so it seems like those talks are ongoing, at the very least. The report was before Microsoft officially announced a renewed multi-billion dollar partnership with OpenAI. At that time, Microsoft had been working for over a year to apply AI tech to write emails and documents. The difficult part was making sure it didn’t reiterate other users’ work since the large dataset it would work off of would be Microsoft’s own customers.

The Verge’s report mentions we could get a taste for what this will look like sometime in March. You can already tell what Microsoft’s “Prometheus Model” AI might look like in Outlook, as the company demoed its AI-powered Viva Sales system last week. The company said in the demo that the “Azure Open AI” can generate a draft based on the type of response a user requests.

The new Bing incorporates two systems, a chat and compose tab. The compose tab is likely what will be closest to any integration with Word or Outlook. Microsoft also wants its new system to generate charts and graphics for use in PowerPoint, so even as slideshows remain an archaic way to display information (cough), Microsoft wants to let AI do most of the heavy lifting. The report does not mention Excel, but AI integration into that program could be very helpful or extremely damaging, especially considering how AI can get facts and figures wrong. Just look at Google’s first showcase for its own search AI from Wednesday.