Microsoft says its new $30bn (£22bn) investment in the UK's AI sector - its largest outside of the US - should significantly boost Britain's economy in the next few years. Its package forms a major part of a £31billion agreement made between the UK government and various other US tech giants, including Nvidia and Google, to invest in British-based infrastructure to support AI technology, largely in the form of data centres. Microsoft will also now be involved in the creation of a powerful new supercomputer in Loughton, Essex. Speaking exclusively to the BBC Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the BBC of the tech's potential impact on economic growth. It may happen faster, so our hope is not ten years but maybe five.

A number of people have contacted me at the BBC recently to share personal stories about their experiences with AI chatbots. They vary in content but what they all share is genuine conviction that what has happened is real. One wrote that she was certain she was the only person in the world that ChatGPT had genuinely fallen in love with. Another was convinced they had "unlocked" a human form of Elon Musk's chatbot Grok and believed their story was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. A third claimed a chatbot had exposed her to psychological abuse as part of a covert AI training exercise and was in deep distress.

Microsoft's president says the sacking of OpenAI boss Sam Altman was not because of AI safety worries.

Microsoft bosses are slated to meet with Jeremy Hunt this week as Britain attempts to stop the company from purchasing the publisher of Call of Duty. The tech firm launched a bid to acquire video game Activision Blizzard, but British antitrust regulators have blocked the roughly £55billion ($69billion) purchase. If Microsoft moves forward with the purchase, gamers in the UK would be unable to purchase or download any titles from the Activision catalogue, including COD, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and Candy Crush. Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, has arranged to meet with the Chancellor this week to discuss the proposal, as well as the'potential of AI' and the'need for thoughtful regulation of it', a spokesperson told Bloomberg. Analysts predict the Government and Microsoft will reach an agreement before'extreme measures', like prohibiting access to Activision games, take place.

BRUSSELS – The EU's proposal for a temporary ban on facial-recognition technology won backing from Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai on Monday but got a cool response from Microsoft President Brad Smith. While Pichai cited the possibility that the technology could be used for nefarious purposes as a reason for a moratorium, Smith said a ban was akin to using a meat cleaver instead of a scalpel to solve potential problems. "I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and give a framework for it," Pichai told a conference in Brussels organized by think-tank Bruegel. "It can be immediate but maybe there's a waiting period before we really think about how it's being used," he said. "It's up to governments to chart the course" for the use of such technology.

Tech companies should stop behaving as though everything that is not illegal is acceptable, says Microsoft's second-in-command. Instead, they should focus on defining – and living by – the standards that they would like to see in regulation, before it gets forced on them anyway. For some of the most potentially dangerous new technologies, such as facial recognition, that could mean voluntarily refusing to sell them to certain countries, for certain uses, or even agreeing to a moratorium altogether, said Brad Smith, the president and chief legal officer of the world's most valuable publicly-traded company. Speaking to the Guardian before the launch of his new book, Tools and Weapons, Smith said that if technology firms wanted to be proud of how they changed the world for the better, they must take more responsibility for the ways they have made it worse. "When you think about all of the issues that people worry about in the world today and what they spend their time arguing about, it's often issues like trade, immigration, nationalism, globalisation," Smith said.

Robot'alter-egos' that are a digital extension of our consciousness and know everything about us will soon be a reality. That's according to Microsoft executive, Brad Smith and Harry Shum, who are working to develop advanced AI software capable of mimicking human thought. This breakthrough - which some fear could spell the beginning of the end for humanity - will come over the next two decades, they say. They also warn that controls should be put in place to prevent intelligent machines from acting against the interests of society and people. Robot'alter-egos' that know everything about you will become an everyday reality within 20 years, say artificial intelligence experts.

Microsoft will increase its use of artificial intelligence (AI) in order to improve the company's products, chief executive Satya Nadella said when revealing the tech giant's latest financial results. The company behind the Windows PC software reported revenue of 24.1 billion US dollars (£19.1bn) in the three months to December 31, up on the 23.8 billion dollars (£18.9bn) it generated in the same period last year, an increase driven by the firm's cloud-based products, Nadella said. Since taking over as chief executive in 2014, Nadella has shifted Microsoft's focus to its cloud business and software and away from hardware including smartphones. "Our customers are seeing greater value and opportunity as we partner with them through their digital transformation," he said of the latest figures, which also included 5.2 billion dollars (£4.1bn) in net income. "Accelerating advancements in AI across our platforms and services will provide further opportunity to drive growth in the Microsoft Cloud."