Why Microsoft won't be the company to mainstream consumer AI use

[Windows Central]

Will Microsoft mainstream AI? A brief glimpse at Microsoft's history of cutting-edge tech tells us that it won't be the company that mainstreams AI use.

Why Microsoft won't be the company to mainstream consumer AI use : Read more

 

[fjtorres5591]

You do realize that "AI" today is not a product, right?
It is a software tool.
And Microsoft bread-and-butter has always been tools. Programing tools. Productivity tools, primarily.

Consumer products is something they've never had a handle on but if it is to change it will be via subscriptions. Hence the focus on Game Pass and cloud gaming. The latter, in particular, if they stick with it, stands a good chance to grow with the quality of broadband evolution. Via the one area that the clueless regulars never bothered to consider: cloud gaming direct on TVs. (I saw no mention of Samsung being questioned anywhere.) Cloud gaming as a *feature* stands a good chance of boosting Game Pass, the *product*. Just follow the money.

For "AI" the products to look to are the usual suspects, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote, Sharepoint, Access, etc. There may be newcomers (DESIGNER, maybe an image processor) but those aren't here yet.

And while BingChat and BingCreate are out there, they are more features of Bing than standalone revenue generators. Their ChatBot revenues are going to come via OpenAI and AZURE, which is the host platform for the apps that use the OpenAI api set. Why compete with their captive partner?

So no, MS isn't going to drive "AI" mainstream any more than they drove object oriented programing to the consumer market. Because they're not trying. That's not their concern. Not when there is more and easier money in adding GPT to software tools.

As to "AI" for consumers, do you see Apple out there? Amazon? Sony?

It isn't a consumer product yet. Maybe never. TBD.

 

[Steelvictory7]

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts is a premise the Microsoft has lived by. Who uses Microsoft Teams at home? The more important question is does Microsoft really care, when they know many HAVE to use Microsoft Teams at work? That's the rub. Microsoft has sacrificed trying to truly connect with the individual consumer in exchange for the assimilation of the corporate collective. No OS is utilized more on the corporate level than Windows. That's been a hallmark of Microsoft. Their Office suite of applications, which Teams is a part of is utilized more than any other like it on the corporate level. Bing Chat will be a part of that, just like Skype for business was. I think we need to stop wondering if Microsoft will get serious about really connecting with the individual consumer and start asking do they genuinely care?

 

[naddy69]

As long as you continue to wish for Microsoft to become a consumer products company, you will continue to be disappointed.

You might as well wish for IBM to start a music streaming service.