Microsoft is using the power of GPT-3's natural language artificial intelligence (AI) to help people who don't know how to code write their own software using Microsoft's PowerApps development platform, unveiled at Microsoft's Build developer conference. Redmond has hoped that PowerApps would become a powerful corollary to its Office suite, but the platform has languished a bit. Microsoft originally set up PowerApps in 2015 around a set of programming templates, pulling data from user-defined sources and then outputting results. Think of it like the next level of a traditional macro in Microsoft Office--it's a way for an average user to write a program to instruct Windows to perform a task, but with minimal or no knowledge of program coding. The problem is that even what Microsoft calls a "low code" or "no code" approach can be time-consuming and complex.

Microsoft is using the power of GPT-3's natural language AI to help people who don't know how to code write their own software using Microsoft's PowerApps development platform. The announcement was made at Microsoft's Build developer conference today. Microsoft has hoped that PowerApps would become a powerful corollary to its Office suite, but the platform has languished a bit. Microsoft originally set up PowerApps in 2015 around a set of programming templates, pulling data from user-defined sources and then outputting results. Think of it like the next level of a traditional macro in Microsoft Office--it's a way for an average user to write a program to instruct Windows to perform a task, but with minimal or no knowledge of program coding.

I have been talking a lot this year about democratizing digital. It is about empowering everyone to have a digital experience and enabling everyone to participate in the digital economy. This trend is large-scale, with broad business and social impact. This was clear earlier this month at the Microsoft Government Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. There, I met with federal agency and department leaders to discuss how cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are delivering new levels of innovation and impacting entire markets and industries. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers one of the best examples of the power of data and AI to transform agricultural productivity through the FarmBeats initiative.

In this AI Builder three-part blog series, first blog was about how to use AI Builder to extract Form document data and second blog highlighted the use of AI Builder Text classification model. Now in the third and final blog we will see how to build an AI Object Detector using Power Platform. Object detection refers to the capability of computer and software systems to detect images, locate objects in an image and identify each object. Object detection can be used to expedite or automate business processes in multiple industries. AI Object detection is a new feature in Power Platform which can be accomplished using AI Builder.

Low code and no code are the latest industry buzzwords, but if vendors can truly abstract away the complexity of difficult tasks like building machine learning models, it could help mainstream technologies that are currently out of reach of most business users. That's precisely what Microsoft is aiming to do with its latest Power Platform announcements today. The company tried to bring that low-code simplicity to building applications last year when it announced PowerApps. Now it believes by combining PowerApps with Microsoft Flow and its new AI Builder tool, it can allow folks building apps with PowerApps to add a layer of intelligence very quickly. It starts with having access to data sources, and the Data Connector tool gives users access to more than 250 data connectors.

Microsoft's AI Builder artificial intelligence platform, now in preview, enables nonprogrammers -- as well as professional developers -- to easily add AI to the projects they are working on to create more intelligent applications. Microsoft's low-code, no-code Power Platform consists of PowerApps, Power BI and Flow. PowerApps enables developers to create mobile and web apps with low- or no-code. Power BI is for analyzing data, creating reports and creating dashboards with low or no code, and Flow helps devs automate tasks and workflows with low or no code. AI Builder is tightly integrated with PowerApps so that users can simply click on visual prompts to add AI-enabled controls to their mobile or web.

Low code and no code are the latest industry buzzwords, but if vendors can truly abstract away the complexity of difficult tasks like building machine learning models, it could help mainstream technologies that are currently out of reach of most business users. That's precisely what Microsoft is aiming to do with its latest Power Platform announcements today. The company tried to bring that low-code simplicity to building applications last year when it announced PowerApps. Now it believes by combining PowerApps with Microsoft Flow and its new AI Builder tool, it can allow folks building apps with PowerApps to add a layer of intelligence very quickly. It starts with having access to data sources, and the Data Connector tool gives users access to more than 250 data connectors.

Low code and no code are the latest industry buzzwords, but if vendors can truly abstract away the complexity of difficult tasks like building machine learning models, it could help mainstream technologies that are currently out of reach of most business users. That's precisely what Microsoft is aiming to do with its latest Power Platform announcements today. The company tried to bring that low code simplicity to building applications last year when it announced PowerApps. Now it believes by combining PowerApps with Microsoft Flow and its new AI Builder tool, it can allow folks building apps with PowerApps to add a layer of intelligence very quickly. It starts with having access to data sources, and the Data Connector tool gives users access to over 250 data connectors.

Today at Microsoft Business Forward in Paris, France we connected with hundreds of global business leaders to share our vision for Microsoft Business Applications. In addition, I had the privilege to unveil new Dynamics 365 AI and mixed reality applications, and new solutions to help businesses unlock deeper insights from data across their organizations. The new capabilities we introduce biannually in our October and April releases advance our commitment to remove barriers to innovation and operational excellence; a vision reinforced by amazing stories of companies evolving their business as usual. ExxonMobil is a great example. This week, we announced that the world's largest publicly traded international oil and gas company has deployed Dynamics 365 to help improve operations in one of the world's most important oil-producing regions.