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Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Integrating chatbots into office tools marks a turning point in the race to develop a perfect virtual assistant for work.

Editor's note: Microsoft really likes the idea of a virtual office assistant. Remember Clippy? After constant ridicule in the 1990s and early noughties, Microsoft dropped the same. Once the company’s mobile phone ambitions died, orphaning its voice assistant Cortana, Microsoft pivoted Cortana to be that office assistant—bringing in context from your documents, files and email conversations and helping you schedule meetings, et al. That too didn’t work out well. Microsoft slowly, and steadily, limited its scope before abandoning it completely. In line with the theme of the year, Microsoft has revived its ambitions again with Copilot. And it’s the first time that the company’s concept of virtual assistants, as it fits into its idea of the future of work, doesn’t look misplaced. The new set of AI-powered features announced last week will help speed up content creation and free up productive time for office workers. It’s not just a chatbot sitting in the sidebar. It’s adaptive; you can create content, slides, graphs, etc. and can also bring a lot of customizations without digging into the app’s features and options. The reason Copilot …
Integrating chatbots into office tools marks a turning point in the race to develop a perfect virtual assistant for work.

Editor's note: Microsoft really likes the idea of a virtual office assistant. Remember Clippy? After constant ridicule in the 1990s and early noughties, Microsoft dropped the same. Once the company’s mobile phone ambitions died, orphaning its voice assistant Cortana, Microsoft pivoted Cortana to be that office assistant—bringing in context from your documents, files and email conversations and helping you schedule meetings, et al. That too didn’t work out well. Microsoft slowly, and steadily, limited its scope before abandoning it completely. In line with the theme of the year, Microsoft has revived its ambitions again with Copilot. And it’s the first time that the company’s concept of virtual assistants, as it fits into its idea of the future of work, doesn’t look misplaced. The new set of AI-powered features announced last week will help speed up content creation and free up productive time for office workers. It’s not just a chatbot sitting in the sidebar. It’s adaptive; you can create content, slides, graphs, etc. and can also bring a lot of customizations without digging into the app’s features and options. The reason Copilot …

The newly listed enterprise AI firm is hoping to attract clients by offering outcome-based pricing for the software it provides, but there’s no saying if it will find enough takers.
TCS CEO Krithivasan’s stunning disclosure lays bare a bind: AI is forcing IT services giants to give away a chunk of renegotiated contract value, even as new revenue remains lumpy and uncertain.
India’s leading tech hardware distribution company is making the most of the unprecedented rise in global prices of laptops and other tech hardware. There’s just one problem.

The newly listed enterprise AI firm is hoping to attract clients by offering outcome-based pricing for the software it provides, but there’s no saying if it will find enough takers.
TCS CEO Krithivasan’s stunning disclosure lays bare a bind: AI is forcing IT services giants to give away a chunk of renegotiated contract value, even as new revenue remains lumpy and uncertain.
India’s leading tech hardware distribution company is making the most of the unprecedented rise in global prices of laptops and other tech hardware. There’s just one problem.