PERCAYA4D Platform Game Online x Feed https://ciodimension.com/tag/microsoft/ empowering smarter conversation Mon, 04 Mar 2024 07:35:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4 https://ciodimension.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cropped-CIO-Dimension-1-1-32x32.png PERCAYA4D Platform Game Online x Feed https://ciodimension.com/tag/microsoft/ 32 32 The humanoid game just got more riveting with Figure getting funding from Microsoft, OpenAI and Bezos  https://ciodimension.com/aiml/the-humanoid-game-just-got-more-riveting-with-figure-getting-funding-from-microsoft-openai-and-bezos/ https://ciodimension.com/aiml/the-humanoid-game-just-got-more-riveting-with-figure-getting-funding-from-microsoft-openai-and-bezos/#respond Mon, 04 Mar 2024 07:35:07 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=21284 The humanoid robotics company raised $675M in Series B funding at a $2.6B valuation, and will work with OpenAI to help robots process and reason from language.

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Figure, an AI robotics company developing general purpose humanoid robots, today announced that it has raised $675M in Series B funding at a $2.6B valuation with investments from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, and ARK Invest. This investment will accelerate Figure’s timeline for humanoid commercial deployment.

What is even more interesting is its collaboration with OpenAI in conjunction with this investment. Figure and OpenAI will work together to develop next generation AI models for humanoid robots, combining OpenAI’s research with Figure’s deep understanding of robotics hardware and software. The collaboration aims to help accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language.

“We’ve always planned to come back to robotics and we see a path with Figure to explore what humanoid robots can achieve when powered by highly capable multimodal models. We’re blown away by Figure’s progress to date and we look forward to working together to open up new possibilities for how robots can help in everyday life,” said Peter Welinder, VP of Product and Partnerships at OpenAI.

The Figure team, made up of top AI robotics experts from Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Google DeepMind, and Archer Aviation, has made remarkable progress in the past few months in the key areas of AI, robot development, robot testing, and commercialization (Figure recently announced its first commercial agreement with BMW Manufacturing to bring humanoids into automotive production). This new capital will be used strategically for scaling up AI training, robot manufacturing, expanding engineering headcount, and advancing commercial deployment efforts.

Figure will also leverage Microsoft Azure for AI infrastructure, training, and storage. 

“Our vision at Figure is to bring humanoid robots into commercial operations as soon as possible. This investment, combined with our partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft, ensures that we are well-prepared to bring embodied AI into the world to make a transformative impact on humanity,” said Brett Adcock, Founder and CEO of Figure. “AI and robotics are the future, and I am grateful to have the support of investors and partners who believe in being at the forefront.”

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Inside Intel’s enormous AI aspiration  https://ciodimension.com/aiml/inside-intels-enormous-ai-aspiration/ https://ciodimension.com/aiml/inside-intels-enormous-ai-aspiration/#respond Sat, 24 Feb 2024 12:52:22 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=20854 intelIntel grabbed the headlines a couple of days ago with the launch of Intel Foundry, its contract chip manufacturing business. The company’s CEO Pat Gelsinger called it as ‘a rebuilding of Intel’ and culmination of the goals that he set for the company when he returned to Intel three years ago. A part of his …

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Intel grabbed the headlines a couple of days ago with the launch of Intel Foundry, its contract chip manufacturing business. The company’s CEO Pat Gelsinger called it as ‘a rebuilding of Intel’ and culmination of the goals that he set for the company when he returned to Intel three years ago. A part of his vision is to make Intel a ‘world-class foundry’ – perhaps a revival of a brand that was once an undisputed force in semiconductor manufacturing. In recent years, Intel’s leadership has been seriously challenged by competitors like TSMC and Samsung.

In its effort to regain the market leadership, it literally split itself into two with the formation of Intel Foundry – world’s first systems foundry for the AI era according to the company. 

“Through our Intel Foundry, I want to manufacture every AI chip in the industry,” said Pat Gelsinger. “AI is profoundly transforming the world and how we think about technology and the silicon that powers it. This is creating an unprecedented opportunity for the world’s most innovative chip designers and for Intel Foundry, the world’s first systems foundry for the AI era. Together, we can create new markets and revolutionize how the world uses technology to improve people’s lives,” he added. 

Watch Gelsinger’s full keynote here: 

The company also announced an expanded process roadmap designed to establish leadership into the latter part of this decade at its first foundry event, Intel Foundry Direct Connect, which stood out due to the presence of Arm CEO Rene Haas, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Intel also announced a big win at the event – Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shared that Microsoft has chosen a chip design it plans to produce on the Intel 18A process.

“We are in the midst of a very exciting platform shift that will fundamentally transform productivity for every individual organization and the entire industry,” Nadella said. “To achieve this vision, we need a reliable supply of the most advanced, high-performance and high-quality semiconductors. That’s why we are so excited to work with Intel Foundry, and why we have chosen a chip design that we plan to produce on Intel 18A process.”

Intel Foundry has design wins across foundry process generations, including Intel 18A, Intel 16 and Intel 3, along with significant customer volume on Intel Foundry ASAT capabilities, including advanced packaging.

In total, across wafer and advanced packaging, Intel Foundry’s expected lifetime deal value is greater than $15 billion.

Gelsinger also had a brainstorming session with OpenAI’s Sam Altman who reiterated why ‘AI is one of the greatest tools that humans have yet invented’. 

Stuart Pann, senior vice president of Intel Foundry at Intel said, “We are offering a world-class foundry, delivered from a resilient, more sustainable and secure source of supply, and complemented by unparalleled systems of chips capabilities. Bringing these strengths together gives customers everything they need to engineer and deliver solutions for the most demanding applications.”

If all the hype and hoopla are anything to go by, Intel Foundry will turn out to be a big milestone for the chip maker. 

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We are not a legacy spinoff losing money: Karen Forbes, Kyndryl https://ciodimension.com/interview/we-are-not-a-legacy-spinoff-losing-money-karen-forbes-kyndryl/ https://ciodimension.com/interview/we-are-not-a-legacy-spinoff-losing-money-karen-forbes-kyndryl/#respond Mon, 19 Feb 2024 05:58:38 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=20525 Karen KyndrylWhere does Kyndryl stand after its much-debated spinoff from IBM? Karen Forbes, Kyndryl’s VP for Global GTM & Customer Advocacy takes us through the company’s transformation journey.

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In November 2021, when IBM spun off its infrastructure services to create ‘Kyndryl’, there were quite a few naysayers. Many called it the unshackling of an unwanted part of the business with declining revenues and earnings. Two challenging years down the line, Kyndryl seems to have done a lot of things right. It’s third quarter fiscal 2024 earnings stand as a testimony. 

It beat Wall Street’s expectations, cut its losses by 50% and raised full-year outlook, increasing its stock value by more than 12%. Its 10% revenue decline is attributed to the strategic exit from zero-margin, low-margin revenue streams. At the time of spinoff, about 40% of its contracts were reportedly making little or no profit. 

In Q3 FY24, the company reported double digit growth in its consult revenue, indicating a strong growth in high-margin services. It’s clear that Kyndryl is shedding businesses that added little or no value, and becoming more focused towards areas where it sees higher margins and potential for growth. 

Quite understandably, it was an uphill battle to turn things around, says Karen Forbes, Vice President – Global Go-To-Market and Customer Advocacy at Kyndryl, during her recent visit to Bangalore. 

CIO Dimension caught up with Karen to know more about Kyndryl’s transformation journey. 

Edited excerpts: 

It’s been over two years since the spin off and it’s been a mixed bag, which is not a surprise after a big spin like this. How would you summarize the last two years of Kyndryl’s journey? 

It has been a big journey for us to embed the brand in the market as we stand alongside some of the giants. We had to build a services company that was unshackled by a product company. Two years down the line, we can say with conviction that we are not a legacy spinoff losing money. Our business results clearly project that now. Besides, we are in the new areas of market, we have built new practices and capabilities and are growing those capabilities in our customers. 

Our leadership had two key mandates for us during this massive transition. The first one is to look after our customers, most of whom agreed to stay with us. Secondly, we decided to retain every employee and give them the confidence to come across. Our leadership has done a fantastic job in steering us through that journey.

Two years ago, when the spin was announced, I don’t think many people were placing the bets on us. There was a lot of cynicism out there. But what we achieved in two years is phenomenal and each of us is proud of it. 

Preparing an organization with about 85,000 employees worldwide during a transformation of this scale is not a small feat. What are your learnings? 

The cultural journey has been challenging because we are changing hearts and minds. We were focusing on building confidence among our people. We spent a huge amount of time talking to them about the brand of Kyndryl, the purpose and mission of the brand. 

We created something called the ‘Kyndryl Way’ which talked about the changes we must embrace as we become a services company. For example, most of our teams on the ground never had to work with channel partners or alliances before. We had to teach many new skills to our teams and build trust because this different way of engaging with customers was not usual for us in the ‘old co’. 

The second big vector is our 3A’s strategic objectives that are at the center of our transformation, which is around Alliances, Advanced Delivery and Accounts. We have been making steady progress in all these areas. Our Alliances with tech leaders like AWS, Google and Microsoft have helped us expand our addressable market. Kyndryl Bridge platform has roughly 750 customers performing over 1 billion automations, generating annual savings of $500 million.  

Kyndryl’s hyperscaler partnerships are a significant part of your growth strategy. Tell us a bit more about these alliances. 

We exceeded our alliance revenue targets, with over $300 million generated this year and raised our full fiscal year target to $400 million. We increased our cloud-related capabilities with 38,000 hyperscaler certifications.

Clearly, there is a lot going on in the cloud space. We work with the hyperscalers to help customers understand what their cloud strategy must be VS leading them to a particular hypervisor.  We work together a lot to understand what we can deliver to customers around data management, Gen AI, sustainability, hybrid cloud, FinOps and much more. Some of these areas help us build relationships beyond CIOs to include CFOs, data managers among others.  As our revenue is historically shrinking, it’s important to be in those new places. 

We are also building specific solutions and reference architectures around different industries like financial services and technologies such as genAI and analytics with each of these hyperscalers. So, we are moving the partnership beyond the cloud migration aspect to larger areas. 

How are you modernizing your GTM to align with the new ways of doing things? 

We have been focusing on simplifying how we show up in front of the customer. For example, instead of having multiple specialists as multiple touchpoints, we try to be more cross-practice to solve the customers’ business problem. We start with changing the narrative by focusing on ‘Innovate, modernize and secure’. It’s kind of a flip on from being a product company where you walk in and talk about the products that you like to sell. 

We had an agreement with IBM to use their process and technology at spin. In the last two years, we completely modernized and transformed our front & back offices to “fit-for-purpose” modern IT infrastructure. This helped us consolidate over 80% of the application portfolio we inherited, from over 1,800 business applications to fewer than 360 applications. That made us more efficient and effective in the way we go to market. 

The third important part of the GTM is the skills. We continue to invest heavily on the skills of our people. People are the heart of what we do and they are our most valuable asset as a services company. 

Lastly, would you like to talk about some interesting customer stories from India and the significance of India as a market for Kyndryl? 

India is a particularly exciting market for us. Some of our key customers in India are from the banking and financial sector. A notably big win for us from this sector is Canara Bank which partnered with us to manage and transform their IT operation including the application landscape. We also work a lot of with small finance banks like Suryoday Bank for technology transformation and digital banking. NPCI is another key customer for us, helping them manage their data centers which handle up to 70 billion transactions a month. 

We have some really inspiring stories from our customers like Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, USDC / Jain University and Dr. Lal Path Labs from India. Most importantly, what we see in India is a market where we can innovate in and scale for the rest of the markets globally.


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Microsoft to provide AI skilling opportunities to 2 Mn people in India by 2025 https://ciodimension.com/aiml/microsoft-to-provide-ai-skilling-opportunities-to-2-mn-people-in-india-by-2025/ https://ciodimension.com/aiml/microsoft-to-provide-ai-skilling-opportunities-to-2-mn-people-in-india-by-2025/#respond Thu, 08 Feb 2024 06:16:28 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=19989 Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella kicked off his visit to India yesterday by reinforcing the company’s commitment to supporting India’s transformation into an AI-first nation. The commitment aligns with India’s vision of becoming self-reliant by fostering a skilled AI workforce and empowering every sector and industry to transform with AI.  Nadella made …

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Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella kicked off his visit to India yesterday by reinforcing the company’s commitment to supporting India’s transformation into an AI-first nation. The commitment aligns with India’s vision of becoming self-reliant by fostering a skilled AI workforce and empowering every sector and industry to transform with AI. 

Nadella made the comments at the Microsoft CEO Connection event in Mumbai on Wednesday, which was attended by top business leaders and decision makers. During his address, Nadella announced that Microsoft will provide 2 million people in India with AI skilling opportunities by 2025, through its new ADVANTA(I)GE INDIA initiative. This will help to close skills gaps across the nation and strengthen India’s ability to thrive in the AI era. 

“India is uniquely positioned to make the promise of AI a reality,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “We are committed to partnering broadly across the public and private sector to help close the nation’s AI skills gap and create new opportunity throughout the country.” 

“The ADVANTA(I)GE INDIA initiative is a significant step towards democratizing access to AI skills across the nation and reflects Microsoft’s deep commitment to enabling inclusive growth with technology,” saidPuneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India & South Asia. “India has a huge opportunity to be a global leader in AI, and creating AI fluency at scale is a critical step in that journey. This initiative aims to propel India into a promising era of AI fluency, empowering citizens across India with the right skills to thrive in the age of AI.” 

Nadella highlighted how Microsoft Copilot, along with the company’s other AI solutions, is driving measurable productivity gains for people and organizations by helping them complete work faster and with superior quality. For instance, recent research on early users of Copilot for Microsoft 365 found that they were 29 percent faster in a series of tasks, including searching, writing, and summarizing. 

Many organizations in India are already boosting their productivity and accelerating innovation using Copilot for Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot. Nadella mentioned names such as Axis Bank, Infosys, HCL Tech, and LTIMindtree that have leveraged Copilot in multiple ways. 

He said that organizations in India are seeing an average US$3.86 return for every US dollar spent on AI projects, and more than 150 organizations are already innovating with Azure OpenAI Service across industries such as agriculture, aviation, ecommerce, and fast-moving consumer goods. They include names like ITC, Karya, an Indian social impact organization, Arvind Limited, India’s largest denim manufacturer, and Air India. 

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The great saga of Sam and Satya: High drama with a vague ending  https://ciodimension.com/aiml/the-great-saga-of-sam-and-satya-high-drama-with-a-vague-ending/ https://ciodimension.com/aiml/the-great-saga-of-sam-and-satya-high-drama-with-a-vague-ending/#respond Thu, 23 Nov 2023 05:03:31 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=16260 Sam and SatyaFor now, the grand theatrics seem to have finally cooled off and the five days of uproar seems unnecessary.

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After a few days of high drama, the OpenAI meltdown continues to fascinate all of us. Started on an otherwise quiet Friday with the sacking of Sam Altman from OpenAI, the series of events that unfolded since then was nothing short of a Hollywood suspense thriller. 

As the slogan “OpenAI is nothing without its people” took over X (formerly Twitter), Satya Nadella and Microsoft were quick to strike when the iron was hot. Nadella welcomed Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman to Microsoft along with all of OpenAI’s 730+ employees who are arguably  some of the world’s best engineers.

OpenAI’s loss, Microsoft’s Gain

OpenAI consists of a bunch of passionate researchers – people who believed they joined a cause rather than a company. Altman’s sacking probably broke their unity of purpose, which triggered an unprecedented revolt against the Board. That worked really in favor of Microsoft – at least at that moment. 

“If you told me 10 years ago that a group of the smartest engineers in the land would evoke the threat, “Do what I say or I will go to work at Microsoft,” I would not have believed you. Amazing shift in corporate reputation (and much credit to Satya),” Benchmark General Partner Bill Gurley tweeted. 

The Board, many of whom later openly expressed regret in their decision, didn’t have much choice but to start talks with Altman. The news of Altman and Brockman leading Microsoft’s AI research arm was already out by then. It seemed like a big crisis and for a while, Microsoft and Nadella appeared to be in a sweet spot despite its $10 Bn commitment to OpenAI.

Nadella’s move was referred as ‘a genius business move’ that can make Microsoft the most powerful player in the AI game. Its stock climbed up $7.59 –  a 2% spike, raising its market cap to $2.81 trillion. Forbes reported the move as the most remarkable ‘aquihires without an actual acquisition’. 

The 360 – degree turn

However, last we heard, Altman and Brockman are back to OpenAI. “I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together. When I decided to join Microsoft on Sunday evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team. With the new board and with Satya’s support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership with Microsoft,” Sam wrote on X, at 11.38 AM IST on Nov 22nd. 

Brockman kept it simple – “Returning to OpenAI & getting back to coding tonight”. Mind you, this was roughly after 100 hours since he took to X to post a copy of the message that he sent to OpenAI team stating “…I quit.” 

Altman’s return is as dramatic as his exit perhaps. But what does this mean for Nadella who seemed to have larger ambitions? Is it really a setback or he thinks it’s most appropriate to keep Altman where he always belonged? In the process, Microsoft’s stocks reportedly dipped 6 percentage.

Nadella, as always, has been quick to respond to Altman’s decision to return to OpenAI- 

“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance. Sam, Greg, and I have talked and agreed they have a key role to play along with the OAI leadership team in ensuring OAI continues to thrive and build on its mission. We look forward to building on our strong partnership and delivering the value of this next generation of AI to our customers and partners.” he wrote a few minutes after Altman announced his decision on X, on Wednesday.

Reports suggest that both sides have agreed to an investigation presumably by an outside, independent law firm. TechCrunch reported that the OpenAI board is open to appointing an extended board of upto 9 people that will relook at the governance of the firm, which has been incurring criticism owing to its unusual structure. And chances are, Microsoft will have a bigger say in these governance changes. 

For now, the grand theatrics seem to have finally cooled off and the five days of uproar seems unnecessary. One is left to wonder, however, the motives of the key stakeholders involved in this saga. As one of the users on X candidly wrote under Altman’s come back tweet – “The lengths this man will go to not use Microsoft teams!”. 

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Nextiva appoints ex-Microsoft Teams Chief Architect as CPTO https://ciodimension.com/industry-beat/nextiva-ropes-in-ex-microsoft-exec-as-chief-product-technology-officer/ https://ciodimension.com/industry-beat/nextiva-ropes-in-ex-microsoft-exec-as-chief-product-technology-officer/#respond Thu, 31 Aug 2023 08:39:09 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=12793 Senthil Velayutham was formerly the CTO/Chief Architect for Microsoft Teams, helping scale the product from zero to 13 million daily active users

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Business communications company Nextiva announced the appointment of Senthil Velayutham as Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO).

Velayutham will lead the company’s global engineering, product and technology teams.

Most recently, Velayutham was Chief Product & Technology Officer at Trader Interactive, a Goldman Sachs and Eurazeo portfolio company, now acquired by carsales.com. Before that, Velayutham held various leadership roles at Microsoft where he worked for over 24 years, including for Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Microsoft Search & AI, and Microsoft Roundtable. As CTO/Chief Architect for Microsoft Teams, Velayutham helped scale the product from zero to 13 million daily active users in 53 languages, and across more than 180 countries.

“Nextiva is on a mission to transform how businesses connect and engage with their customers and teams,” said Tomas Gorny, Co-founder and CEO, Nextiva. “As we look to the next phase of growth, Senthil is the right leader with a real passion for customer driven innovation, and an impressive track record of building market leading products and leading highly effective, global teams.”

“Nextiva believes that customer experience is the key to business success. In the next phase of transformation, Nextiva will provide industry leading solutions that enable businesses to understand, engage and delight their customers across multiple channels,” said Velayutham. “I am really excited to join Tomas and the team to deliver Nextiva’s vision to businesses of all sizes around the world.”

Earlier this year, Nextiva announced its acquisition of Simplify360, an AI customer experience platform. The acquisition opens the door to the Asia-Pacific market for Nextiva, as the company expands to support more businesses globally. Nextiva raised $200M from Goldman Sachs Asset Management in its first ever funding round at a $2.7B valuation in late 2021.

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Pure Storage, Microsoft expand partnership to address cloud adoption challenges  https://ciodimension.com/news/pure-storage-microsoft-expand-partnership-to-address-cloud-adoption-challenges/ https://ciodimension.com/news/pure-storage-microsoft-expand-partnership-to-address-cloud-adoption-challenges/#respond Wed, 23 Aug 2023 12:14:19 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=12577 CloudPure’s block storage capabilities will allow Azure VMware customers to scale storage and compute independently

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Pure Storage today announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft, integrating its storage capabilities to Azure VMware Solution (AVS) – Microsoft Azure’s fully managed VMware-as-a-Service offering. 

As cloud adoption accelerates, enterprises aspire to migrate all or portions of their VMware environments – the majority of which consume block-based storage – to the cloud but are met by challenges of inconsistent storage layer management in comparison to their on-premises deployment, and an unmet need to scale compute and storage independently to match data growth. 

The expanded partnership between Pure Storage and Microsoft eliminates this barrier. By integrating Pure Cloud Block Store with Azure VMware Solution, organizations gain access to Pure’s feature set and the ability scale storage and compute independently as workload demands change.

Sudharsan Aravamuthan, Head, Systems Engineeringing, Pure Storage India, said, “Currently migrating on-premise environments to AVS is often a cost prohibitive move as enterprises are unable to decouple the storage and compute components. With Pure Storage’s block storage option on Azure, organizations can migrate their applications to the cloud without any capability trade-offs, with the ability to scale storage and compute independently based on need.

Aravamuthan added that customers will be able to leverage the offering irrespective of the existing storage infrastructure they have in their on-premise environments. AVS will continue to have VMware’s vSAN as an option along with Pure’s Cloud Block Store for customers. 

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Microsoft appoints Former AWS exec Puneet Chandok to lead India operations https://ciodimension.com/industry-beat/people-movement/microsoft-appoints-former-aws-exec-puneet-chandok-to-lead-india-operations/ https://ciodimension.com/industry-beat/people-movement/microsoft-appoints-former-aws-exec-puneet-chandok-to-lead-india-operations/#respond Wed, 02 Aug 2023 07:13:02 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=12074 Puneet-Chandok - Microsoft.Puneet joins Microsoft from AWS and succeeds Anant Maheshwari who served as Microsoft India President for last seven years.

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Microsoft announced Puneet Chandok’s appointment as Corporate Vice President of Microsoft India and South Asia. Effective September 1, 2023, he will assume the operational responsibilities from Anant Maheshwari.

Puneet joins Microsoft from AWS where he served as President for India and South Asia for over four years. His exit from AWS was first reported by TechCrunch in June. His predecessor Anant Maheshwari, who served as Microsoft India President for seven years, was confirmed to have resigned from the company on the 7th of July.

Puneet will oversee the integration of Microsoft’s businesses across South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, further boosting the company’s presence in the region, while deepening its focus on key industries through a customer-centric approach with generative AI at its core.

Commenting on his appointment, Puneet Chandok said, “I am inspired by Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As India expands its own digital public infrastructure, I believe that this mission is more relevant here than ever before, and I am thrilled to be joining the One Microsoft team to make this mission a reality.”

Anant, in a heartfelt note on LinkedIn, wrote, “… After 7 years, inspired with growth mindset, it’s time for me to move forward… to a different industry, a new geography & a broader role. More details on this soon. But at this point, the one emotion that fills me is #GRATITUDE for everyone who made the last 7 years a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Puneet’s appointment comes at a time of continued market expansion for Microsoft. With the largest partner ecosystem globally, including a 17,000 strong network in India generating high cloud revenue, and new investments in local infrastructure including the intent to establish a new data center in Hyderabad, Microsoft’s growth aligns with India’s emergence as a global innovation hub, the company stated. 

Prior to AWS, Puneet was a Partner at McKinsey in India and Asia, and also held senior regional and global roles in IBM. Puneet holds a master’s in business administration (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, a bachelor’s degree in commerce, and diplomas in Computer Programming, Networking, and High-level Computer Systems.

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Google, Microsoft, OpenAI & Anthropic form industry body to ensure responsible AI  https://ciodimension.com/aiml/google-microsoft-openai-anthropic-form-industry-body-to-ensure-responsible-ai/ https://ciodimension.com/aiml/google-microsoft-openai-anthropic-form-industry-body-to-ensure-responsible-ai/#respond Thu, 27 Jul 2023 11:40:42 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=11923 In a big move, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have come together to form the Frontier Model Forum, a new industry body focused on ensuring safe and responsible development of frontier AI models. Frontier models are defined by the Forum as large-scale machine-learning models that exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing …

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In a big move, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have come together to form the Frontier Model Forum, a new industry body focused on ensuring safe and responsible development of frontier AI models. Frontier models are defined by the Forum as large-scale machine-learning models that exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models, and can perform a wide variety of tasks. 

The Frontier Model Forum will draw on the technical and operational expertise of its member companies to benefit the entire AI ecosystem, such as through advancing technical evaluations and benchmarks, and developing a public library of solutions to support industry best practices and standards, according to a blog post on Google’s website. 

The post states four core objectives for the Forum: 

  1. Advancing AI safety research to promote responsible development of frontier models, minimize risks, and enable independent, standardized evaluations of capabilities and safety.
  2. Identifying best practices for the responsible development and deployment of frontier models, helping the public understand the nature, capabilities, limitations, and impact of the technology.
  3. Collaborating with policymakers, academics, civil society and companies to share knowledge about trust and safety risks.
  4. Supporting efforts to develop applications that can help meet society’s greatest challenges, such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, early cancer detection and prevention, and combating cyber threats.


The official statement from Google highlighted the need to extend the existing efforts to mitigate the risks associated with AI. 

“Governments and industry agree that, while AI offers tremendous promise to benefit the world, appropriate guardrails are required to mitigate risks. Important contributions to these efforts have already been made by the US and UK governments, the European Union, the OECD, the G7 (via the Hiroshima AI process), and others.

To build on these efforts, further work is needed on safety standards and evaluations to ensure frontier AI models are developed and deployed responsibly. The Forum will be one vehicle for cross-organizational discussions and actions on AI safety and responsibility.”

Brad Smith, Vice Chair & President, Microsoft  said, “Companies creating AI technology have a responsibility to ensure that it is safe, secure, and remains under human control. This initiative is a vital step to bring the tech sector together in advancing AI responsibly and tackling the challenges so that it benefits all of humanity.” 

Also read: Artificial intelligence and human creativity: A tug of war 

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Freshworks unveils Generative AI enhancements across product lines  https://ciodimension.com/aiml/freshworks-unveils-generative-ai-enhancements-across-product-lines/ https://ciodimension.com/aiml/freshworks-unveils-generative-ai-enhancements-across-product-lines/#respond Thu, 22 Jun 2023 10:35:15 +0000 https://ciodimension.com/?p=10835 Freshworks FreddyThe company maintains that the new capabilities are aimed at helping agents, sellers, marketers, IT teams and leaders become more efficient.

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Freshworks, the business software maker, has announced new predictive and assistive generative AI capabilities embedded within its solutions and platform. The new enhancements include Freddy Self Service, Freddy Copilot and Freddy Insights, all of which will be demonstrated for the first time at Freshworks’ Q2 ’23 Launch event. The new enhancements follow the company’s AI upgrades launched in March. 

The company maintains that the new capabilities are aimed at helping agents, sellers, marketers, IT teams and leaders become more efficient. 

The Freddy AI capabilities are built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and use Azure Cognitive Services including Open AI completions API, GPT3.5-turbo and GPT4 models, to implement features such as message expansion, tone enhancer, summarizer, rephraser, and more. Azure OpenAI Service’s GPT-3 model called text-davinci-003 is also leveraged to build Freddy Copilot. 

Freddy Copilot offers contextual assistance, offloads repetitive tasks, and maximizes team productivity by enabling developers and employees in support, sales, and marketing to use conversations to get their work done; Freddy Self Service offloads monotonous work to bots to scale support and deliver excellent customer experiences; and Freddy Insights automates the analysis of their daily productivity and provides recommendations to drive greater business impact. Together, Freddy generative AI capabilities help businesses automate, scale, and derive actionable insights from their work.

“Our goal at Freshworks is to put the power of generative AI in the hands of the Fortune five million, not just the Fortune 500 enterprise,” Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and CEO.

“We’ve been helping customers run more efficient businesses with AI for half a decade and know they don’t need a billion apps to do so. Every department could benefit from a workplace assistant that maximizes productivity, and that’s what Freddy AI can do – for the support agent, sales person, marketer, IT manager, HR professional, developer and more.”

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