Microsoft will announce new features for Windows and cloud AI in May.

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, stated in January that 2024 would be the year when "AI becomes a first-class part of all PCs," and the schedule for the conference that Microsoft will hold in May reflects that goal. Microsoft has reported a significant increase in revenue from clients running AI models on the Azure public cloud, and the company is eager to maintain this trend by deploying new AI features for developers.

Mustafa Suleiman, the new head of Microsoft AI, will speak at the keynote presentation of the show held in Seattle, along with Nadella and other long-time executives. Suleiman, the co-founder of DeepMind, an AI startup acquired by Google in 2014, joined Microsoft last month from the startup's Inflexion AI.

For years, people looking to make the most of the Windows operating system have been able to install PowerToys, an open-source bundle of utilities including image resizing widgets and keyboard shortcut customization programs. At Build, Microsoft plans to provide an overview of the new Advanced Paste feature, which will allow the use of AI models to operate directly on PCs rather than sending data to the cloud for a response.

According to one session description, the software maker will also discuss new AI capabilities to "enable deeper interactions with users' digital lives on Windows." Developers will be able to integrate these features into Windows applications.

As part of this strategy, Microsoft announced in March the Surface PCs equipped with a Copilot button for quick access to the company's chatbot. These machines are powered by Intel processors. For years, Microsoft has been working to enhance the Windows PC user experience by incorporating energy-efficient chips based on Arm architecture, rather than the standard x86 models adopted by Intel. At Build, Microsoft is expected to explain how Windows apps can utilize an Arm-based Neural Processing Engine (NPU) for artificial intelligence.

Organizations building their own chatbots in Azure AI Studio will have the opportunity to learn about new features related to AI safety.

Microsoft is also working to make Azure more user-friendly overall. The company is also planning to talk about enhancements to the features available in Copilot chatbot accessible on Azure.