Artificial intelligence will dramatically increase our dependence on Microsoft.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf Unfortunately, it’s not an April Fool’s joke: From April 1st, the prices of Microsoft’s cloud products in the euro zone will increase by eleven percent. And that’s just a year after Microsoft made its cloud services more expensive by up to 25 percent.
Microsoft’s confidence brings back memories of the 1990s. At that time, the group used its market power in the PC market and with business customers. Microsoft has skilfully transferred this to the cloud era.
For years, the group has made exemplary investments in the Azure cloud and new products such as Teams or Surface, which are becoming increasingly indispensable for everyday office life.
This also includes artificial intelligence. For many years Microsoft invested in the start-up OpenAI and cooperated with it. The group integrates its GPT-4 language model into many products.
The chatbot ChatGPT is currently the best known and one of the leading AI systems in the world. At the same time, competitors like Google or Baidu fell flat on their noses with their AI presentations.
AI creates market power
Certainly, GPT-4 still makes many mistakes, also tells nonsense. But AI keeps getting better and most importantly, it makes life more convenient. No more clicking and searching, e-mails or chat posts in teams can be found, summarized, classified and answered in no time with the new Microsoft applications.
Artificial intelligence will dramatically increase our dependence on Microsoft. A new online world is emerging from which every friction, as economists call it, is disappearing. Simply ask or instruct the computer, specialist knowledge such as software applications is less and less necessary.
It’s fascinating to see how all you have to do is show GPT-4 a photo of a handwritten instruction, such as creating a website, and it will be programmed.
This not only makes life easier for employees and makes them smarter, but also increases their productivity. Microsoft is becoming more and more indispensable, and the group knows it. That should make companies sit up and take notice: AI creates market power.
More: Plus eleven percent: Microsoft raises prices again significantly