Microsoft shares closed at a record high on Tuesday after the tech giant said it would price its AI productivity software, Microsoft 365 Copilot, at $30 per user per month. Microsoft (MSFT) also debuted Bing Chat Enterprise, a new chat tool that provides additional protection and security controls for businesses concerned about using generative AI. Overall, Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president and chief consumer marketing officer at Microsoft, said in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live that corporate interest in AI is undiminished. “There’s a lot of widespread excitement about the power of AI,” Mehdi said, adding that Microsoft is “capturing a lot of inbound demand for AI.”
video transcript
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Akiko Fujita: Microsoft’s inspiring 2023 conference kicks off today, showcasing the latest Microsoft cloud and generative AI innovations. Microsoft’s stock has skyrocketed following a big announcement, or several big announcements, such as the pricing of its AI subscription service. Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft, joined the conversation with his boyfriend, Dan Howley. group.
Dan Howley: That’s right, Akiko. And welcome, Yusuf. I want to start with Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing. That’s part of the reason Microsoft stock is soaring this afternoon. $30 per user per month. It’s more expensive than other Microsoft products, but can you explain the decision-making process behind it? And why the price? And what does it offer the user?
Yusuf Medhi: Dan, of course. yes. And let me just start by saying that today is a very important day for generative AI to be put to work. And I think that’s the important thing. That said, there has been a lot of excitement about AI to this day. However, it is not used at work due to concerns about leaking sensitive data.
Today we have two big announcements to help with this. One is Bing Chat Enterprise. We’ll get to that in a minute. The other, as you mentioned, is Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing. In my opinion, we are providing better, better, best products for our customers. You know, we have Bing. And it’s still usable today. Anyone can use it for free.
Then there’s Bing Chat Enterprise. It’s free for Microsoft 365 subscribers. If not, we offer a unit price of $5. And finally, Microsoft 365 Copilot offers some very unique capabilities like inferring all your data, using it natively within Microsoft Office apps, and getting team summaries from Teams meetings.
We have been on a pilot. We’ve had great feedback about its value. And that led to pricing.
Dan Howley: When it comes to these two products, Microsoft 365 Copilot, users essentially get access to both web versions of Bing, but they can also pull in their own information from their own databases. company.
So, one example that’s been discussed, if you’re a healthcare provider looking for a healthcare plan, or if a customer is looking for a healthcare plan, I think they could reason. Use the features to quickly surpass it. It’s — is that accurate?
Yusuf Medhi: Yes, that’s right. So if you’re an M365 customer, Dan, you can do the scenario I just talked about with Bing Chat Enterprise for free. For example, let’s say you’re developing a confidential health device and he wants to use AI to write proposals and create strategies. Now you can enter sensitive specs about your device, grab data from the web and compare the two, help build strategy, help create documentation, and be confident that data won’t leak to your AI system. increase. . It doesn’t train a model. No one sees the data.
Now with Bing Chat Enterprise. And Microsoft 365 Copilot takes it to another level. This is because you can simply point AI to any document such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc. and let it work automatically.
Dan Howley: I mean, you’d say there’s obviously been a lot of talk over the past six months. As you all know, he released his Bing and new version of his Edge in February. What kind of prevalence are you seeing? You know, is this an ongoing question from customers about Microsoft products?
So, of course, you can take advantage of 365. You can use standard Bing. There are multiple permutations going on here. Are customers rushing to Microsoft to ask for more? What was your reaction?
Yusuf Medhi: yes. Great question, Dan. There are several. First, there is a very broad growing excitement about the power of AI and what it should do. Therefore, we have acquired a lot of inbound demand. As you’re talking about in the tech world, what we really think of as product market fit is the class of people and the class of scenarios — the people who write the code, the people who actually write the code. I think I’ve found a match depending on the person. Write long documents and demonstrate strategy, analysis, and creativity. For those use cases and the people who do it, it’s on track.
I think the general public is still trying. They are still learning how to use it better. And that’s why today’s announcement is so important. Because the use cases that really work are what people actually do at work. That’s why companies are crying out to use this generative AI at work, and I think we’ll see it today. But legitimate concerns about data privacy actually required it to be banned. All of them are deprecated starting today.
Dan Howley: What are your data privacy concerns? If you’re not using Bing Enterprise Chat, what’s outside?
Yusuf Medhi: So there are a few things. The first is, as I mentioned earlier, the concern that data will leave the organizational boundaries when chatting or doing private searches. Second, is there a mixture of user data and web data? That doesn’t happen. Third, is the data being used actually used to train his AI and is it meant to allow someone else to use the AI to start learning from the data? And finally, are chats saved or are they saved?
All of this is protected by Bing Chat. enterprise. So basically, you can chat and search without worrying about your data exfiltrating, training an AI model, or storing it. Microsoft personnel do not examine your data. It’s all completely private.
Dan Howley: So I just wanted to ask you, obviously you’re not a fortune teller. Unless otherwise, in which case I would like to know the Powerball numbers. But guessing otherwise, where will this kind of AI capability continue to go? Where will it start to bubble up next?
Yusuf Medhi: Well, these are very exciting times. I think we’re going to see this world explode. As we have already mentioned, everyone at work can use chat today to be more creative and productive at work. I think it really takes a leap.
We talked a lot about builds and plugins last month. This is for third-party companies to add to our chats so that they can receive legal advice. You can get shopping support. You can get travel assistance within the chat service. So if you’re an individual user and you’re saying, “I want you to help me proofread this legal document,” call those users. I think it will get off the ground.
And when you get to Copilot, you can incorporate Copilot into the natural flow of your work, just like you’re in PowerPoint or in your team. And can you tell me what I missed at this meeting? What action items would I have gotten if I hadn’t attended a particular meeting? What’s the point? All of these capabilities come with Microsoft 365 Copilot.
So whether you’re using Windows or any of the Microsoft software applications, we’re going to see an acceleration in how AI can essentially make you a super-user, a power-user. I think it will.
Dan Howley: have understood. Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President and Chief Consumer Marketing Officer, Microsoft, thank you for joining us.
Yusuf Medhi: Thank you Dan.
