Tech
Microsoft Launches AI-Powered Dynamics 365 Copilot – TechDecisions
After beginning to integrate generative AI tools from ChatGPT throughout its product portfolio, Microsoft is launching Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot, bringing interactive, AI-powered assistance across business functions and to CRM and ERP systems.
According to Microsoft, Dynamics 365 Copilot is designed to take advantage of generative AI to automate tedious tasks like data entry, content generation and notetaking. It brings advanced AI features to Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Business Central and Supply Chain Center.
The Redmond, Wash. tech giant says Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales leverages AI to help reduce time sellers spend on clerical tasks, such as writing emails to customers and creating an email summary of a Teams meeting in Outlook. Meeting summaries pull in details from the seller’s CRM, such as product information and pricing, as well as insights from recorded Teams calls.
Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service drafts contextual answers to queries in both chat and email, and provides an interactive chat experience over knowledge bases and case history. In addition, customer service departments can build virtual agents with conversation boosters in Power Virtual Agents to leverage Azure OpenAI Service and Bing to provide answers from company websites and internal knowledge bases, the company says.
Meanwhile Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Dynamics 365 Marketing are designed to help marketers simplify their workflows in data exploration, audience segmentation and content creation. According to Microsoft these tools allow marketers to curate highly personalized and targeted customer segments by having a dialogue with their customer data platform using natural language and describe their customer segment in their own words to create a target segment with the query assist feature, respectively, among other functions.
In Dynamics 365 Business Central, Copilot will help streamline the creation of product listings for online commerce, and users can create product descriptions for online storefronts in seconds, Microsoft says.
With Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management customers can leverage features that flag external issues such as weather, financials and geography that may impact key supply chain processes. Predictive insights will surface impact orders across materials, inventory, carrier, distribution network and more, and partners can automatically draft an email generated by Copilot to alert impacted partners.
In a blog, Emily He, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of business applications marketing, says Copilot features are currently in preview across Dynamics 365 apps and Viva Sales.
“Copilot brings the power of next-generation AI capabilities and natural language processing to Dynamics 365, working alongside business professionals to help them create ideas and content faster, complete time-consuming tasks, and get insights and next best actions—just by describing what’s needed,” writes He.
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Tech
The video game industry’s annual trade show E3 is canceled again as organizers say they will ‘re-evaluate the future’ – Fortune
E3, the annual trade show of the video game industry where upcoming titles are unveiled and showcased, has been cancelled for 2023—and many observers suspect the event might finally be over for good.
The Entertainment Software Association and ReedPop, which had been hired to organize this year’s show, announced the cancellation late Thursday. The news came after a growing number of game publishers, including Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft, and Tencent, announced they would not take part in E3 2023.
Both the physical and digital events were scrubbed. On the E3 Website, the two show organizers declined to address whether they would attempt another gathering next year, saying only “both parties will re-evaluate the future of E3.”
That’s a tremendous U-turn from the hyperbole of the show runners last July, when they claimed E3 2023 would set “a new benchmark for video game expos in 2023 and beyond.”
News on #E32023 from the source. pic.twitter.com/BK7TUlb8mZ
— E3 (@E3) March 30, 2023
The last physical E3 was held in 2019, where attendees were able to get their first hands-on time with Google’s Stadia cloud-streaming service and Microsoft began discussing “Project Scarlett,” which would become the Xbox Series X. (Cyberpunk 2077 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake earned “best of show” honors.)
The ESA cancelled the show in 2020 due to the pandemic and held a digital version in 2021 that met with mixed reactions, at best. In 2022, it once again cancelled both the digital and in person show.
While E3 is dead, the industry is still likely to unveil upcoming games over the course of the summer. Ubisoft plans to host an event (likely online) around the same mid-June time frame E3 was scheduled for. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will likely hold their own showcases. And Summer Game Fest, hosted by Game Awards founder Geoff Keighley, will take place on June 8 in Los Angeles.
While many in the industry are mourning the apparent death of E3, the wheels for the show’s diminishing relevancy were set into motion a decade ago. In 2013, Nintendo broke tradition and announced it would not hold its traditional pre-show press conference, opting instead to talk directly to fans via a Webcast and offering demos of unreleased games at Best Buy stores around the country in conjunction with E3.
That initial Nintendo Direct proved to be an effective way to talk directly to customers, without the filter of the media. In the years since, all of the major console manufacturers have embraced it, as have many third-party publishers, such as EA and Ubisoft.
And even in 2013, some analysts were questioning whether the show could survive.
“With the acknowledgement that most of the growth, in a general sense, in gaming is coming outside of retail, E3 is going to take another tick down,” said John Taylor, who was with Arcadia Research Corp, said at the time. “I think we’re going to start hearing discussions about how important E3 is. … It may end up being too big of a venue.”
Many car makers tout smartphone connectivity as a selling point, but GM won’t in the future. In a Reuters interview, GM digital chief Edward Kummer and executive cockpit director Mike Himche say GM will phase out Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with upcoming electric cars, beginning with the 2024 Chevy Blazer EV. Instead, you’ll have to rely on Android Automotive and its apps.
Users will get eight years of free Google Assistant and Google Maps use at no extra charge, GM says. The company doesn’t mention what you’ll pay if you still need those functions afterward. We’ve asked GM for comment. It will still offer CarPlay and Android Auto in combustion engine models, and you won’t lose access on existing EVs. GM plans an all-electric passenger vehicle line by 2035.
The company argues that Android Automotive provides more control over the experience. There are upcoming driver assistance technologies that are “more tightly coupled” with navigation features, Himche says, and GM doesn’t want them to require a smartphone. Kummer also acknowledged that there are “subscription revenue opportunities.” Don’t be surprised if you’re paying a recurring fee for certain features like you already do with some brands.
Android Automotive has a growing footprint. On top of GM, companies like BMW, Honda, Polestar, Stellantis, Volvo and VW are adopting it with or without Google apps. However, the platform doesn’t preclude support for CarPlay or Android Auto. GM is deliberately dropping those features. While this could lead to some innovative driver aids, it could also force you to mount your phone if there’s an app or function the EV’s infotainment system doesn’t support.
The decision is a blow to Apple. Its services may not have native support in GM EVs. The iPhone maker is also developing a next-gen CarPlay experience that can take over the entire dashboard — GM just ruled itself out as a potential customer. If Apple is going to have more control over your drive, it will have to turn to other marques.
April Fools’ Day has not yet arrived quite yet in 2023, but that hasn’t stopped Sega from celebrating. The company stealth dropped a new Sonic the Hedgehog game for free called The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, which lets players solve, as the title says, who killed the Blue Blur.
This game is currently on Steam and takes around 70 minutes to complete. It’s a text-based adventure where players have to piece together clues and use them to prove a suspect’s alibi in order to figure out who “killed” Sonic in a Glass Onion-style murder mystery gone awry. There are also small runner levels where players control Sonic and collect rings while dodging obstacles.
Sega put out a cheeky trailer with the game, too, saying it had “heard the feedback” and was taking the franchise in a whole new direction.
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The video game industry’s annual trade show E3 is canceled again as organizers say they will ‘re-evaluate the future’ – Fortune
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