Microsoft's leader, Satya Nadella, was at the Ignite conference where he shared his company's vision on the developments of deep learning and artificial intelligence.
Tapping into the deep learning and artificial intelligence potential will be transformative for Microsoft, according to the company's CEO.
Artificial Intelligence
"AI [will assist Microsoft] to reason over large amounts of data and convert that into intelligence," Nadella said.
He went on to compare the revolutionary technology with the printing press and the web. The scope of machine learning is so large that we might find ourselves lacking terms for its results, he added.
Nadella cautioned that the big challenge here is finding "human intention and time," so that the end users and developers gain the capability to understand the new information and use it accordingly.
Developers
Nadella explained that developers have access to this intelligence via the Cortana Intelligence Suite. Microsoft embedded a bot framework in the set of tools. This causes Nadella to believe that we are entering an age when conversational agents who interact with customers will be commonplace in most businesses.
It's no secret that Microsoft is dedicated to the "cloud first, mobile first" world, and Nadella pointed out the advantages of the Microsoft Azure cloud in this equation. He underlined that through Azure, developers get access to GPU-based machines which train deep learning models.
Virtual Reality
Microsoft wants to synergize AI, machine learning and the most recent sweetheart of tech, virtual reality. By mixing all these ingredients into the HoloLens headset, Nadella aims to create a transformative difference for his company and the end user.
Take Lowe, for example, that is developing an app for kitchen design expecteed to intuitive and easy to use with the help of HoloLens.
Microsoft aims higher, though. It wants to teach its AI to look into the data stored from multiple uses of HoloLens, so that users get a better experience when ordering items.
Conclusion
"It's never about our technology," Nadella stated.
He affirms that the end goal is giving users freedom to use the technology to pursue their passion and engage their imagination. Nadella is convinced that the creative ways in which Microsoft's AI will be used will help solve societal problems and reshape whole industries.
"We want to democratize AI," he concludes.
Whether the inspiring phrasing holds water or it's just a fancy way of saying "we want everyone to use Microsoft's AI products and services," it's clear that the advancements in machine learning and AI will shape a complex, technology-rich future.
