Applied AI takes the spotlight at Build 2021

Among the 100 updates announced at Microsoft's developer event Build this week, an area that stood out above the noise was artificial intelligence (AI) and, in particular, Microsoft's growing push into higher-level services for applied AI and business scenarios. Microsoft has been gradually embedding business logic into more of its AI in an attempt to help enterprises get out of the "pilot purgatory" that has so often characterized AI projects over the past few years. But at Build this year, it took a big leap forward. Let's take a closer look at the major moves that came out of Build and what they mean for the market. According to a survey my team conducted, more than 80% of companies are now trialling or putting AI into production in their organizations, up from 55% in 2019, and we've seen adoption accelerate dramatically in several narrow areas such as contact centres, chat bots, and fraud detection.