Microsoft Ignite starts November 19th. Register now to attend virtually.
Microsoft Ignite, the annual conference where customers, partners, and tech professionals come together to learn about Microsoft technology and AI solutions kicks off Nov 19th in Chicago. If you don’t already have a pass to attend in-person, you can register as a virtual attendee and get access to all the keynotes and breakout sessions.
Generative AI is rapidly evolving. Take for example, the recent launch of OpenAI’s newest models o1-preview and o1-mini. These models have enhanced reasoning capabilities with multistep reasoning. While earlier models excelled at language tasks such as writing and editing, the new models are designed to handle complex reasoning tasks such as advanced mathematics, coding, and STEM-based questions. They use a “chain of thought” technique that leads to increased accuracy versus earlier language-based models. Each generation of models continues to provide considerable performance improvement with lower costs. And that’s just OpenAI.
There is a plethora of cutting-edge solutions providing models, frameworks, vector databases, LLM observability platforms, and many more tools for developers building GenAI apps. GenAI has spurred a record share of startup funding this year with 35% of US startup investment going to AI-related companies per Crunchbase data. All these advancements are making GenAI easier to build, more affordable and suitable for a wide range of use cases. While a large majority of the companies are jumping on the genAI bandwagon, experimenting with use cases and technologies, many are not running genAI apps at scale in production just yet.
Microsoft has been an early innovator in the GenAI wave, and has been recognized as a leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services as well as the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Application Platform. Microsoft Ignite promises to feature exciting announcements and learning opportunities to help you build, deploy, and run your GenAI apps at scale securely and responsibly. More importantly, you’ll also hear from peers at leading startups and at-scale cloud-first companies on how they are innovating and disrupting with GenAI. Here are the top must-watch sessions:
- Microsoft Ignite opening keynote (Nov 19, 6-8.30am PST). Reason to watch: Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft, will be joined by Scott Guthrie, EVP Cloud and AI, Charlie Bell, EVP Microsoft Security, and Rajesh Jha, EVP Experiences and Devices, to talk about how this era of AI will unlock new opportunities, transform how developers work and drive business productivity across industries.
- Implementing AI Responsibly and Securely (Nov 19, 12.45-1.30pm PST). Reason to watch: The session addresses startup-specific issues like limited resources, ethical considerations, and building scalable AI solutions, offering practical tips. Annie Pearl, CVP/GM of Azure Experiences and Ecosystems leads this session featuring Adriano Koshiyama, Co-Founder Holistic AI and Sam Dover, Global AI Strategy Lead at Unilever.
- How Microsoft can help you build and sell differentiated AI apps (Nov 19, 2-2.45pm PST). Reason to watch: Startups and cloud-first companies are looking not just for a cloud platform to build their genAI apps on, but also a reliable technology partner that can help them grow their business. Jason Graefe, CVP ISV and Digital Natives is joined by Microsoft leaders for AI, developer services, and application platform as well as Adam Binnie, Chief Innovation Officer at Visier and Jeff Zobrist, VP global Partner Network and GTM at Siemens Digital Industries Software, to dive deep into building on the Microsoft Cloud and partnering with Microsoft to grow your business.
- Strategies for enterprises to fast-track AI adoption (Nov 21, 6.30-7.15 am PST). Reason to watch: This fireside chat, led by Tom Davis, Partner at Microsoft for Startups features Shlomi Avigdor, CPO Dataloop AI, Surojit Chatterjee, Founder and CEO Ema Unlimited, and Gil Perry, CEO and Co-founder D-ID. It delves into strategies and methods from industry leading startups who have worked hand in hand with global Enterprises to expedite the integration and widespread use of artificial intelligence across various industries.
- Inspire AI enterprise revolution with innovations from NVIDIA startups (Nov 21, 7.45-8.30 am PST). Reason to watch: NVIDIA Inception Head of Cloud Partnerships, Jennifer Hoskins, hosts a power-packed panel including Dr Vibhor Gupta, CEO Pangaea Data, Lauren Nemeth, COO Pinecone, and Andrew Gostine, CEO Artisight to Gain insights into how AI is driving groundbreaking innovations, enhancing efficiency, and creating new business opportunities across sectors.
- Unicorns Unleashed: Scaling Innovation with Microsoft (Nov 21, 12.30-1 pm PST). Reason to watch: If you are going to be attending in-person in Chicago, this panel led by Ross Kennedy, VP Digital Natives features visionary leaders from leading startups across the globe including Marc Jones CTO Shift Technology, Mike Murchison CEO and Co-founder Ada, and Sergio Passos CTO Blip.
- Best practices for building and monetizing your AI applications (Nov 21, 1.45-2.30pm PST). Reason to watch: This session will offer best practices and hands-on guidance to help maximize your AI product’s success, including product strategy, considerations for tech stack, GTM and even pricing. It features Dave Uppal, VP of ecosystem at Moveworks, and Alois Reitbauer, Chief Technology Strategist at Dynatrace.
- Disrupt and grow with Azure AI (On Demand). Reason to watch: If you are new to Azure, watch this on-demand session to learn about the full stack of Azure services that help you build, run, and scale your GenAI apps. Anand Kulkarni, CEO Crowdbotics will talk about their AI-powered app development platform built on Azure.
- Azure OpenAI for Startups and Digital-First Companies (On Demand). Reason to watch: While there is a ton of content on Azure OpenAI, this one specifically talks about challenges facing startups and at-scale cloud-first companies and how Azure OpenAI can help accelerate innovation. Mike Murchison, CEO Ada will discuss how Ada’s AI-powered customer service automation platform built on Azure OpenAI delivers streamlined and differentiated customer service experience to enterprises.
These are just a few sessions featuring thought leaders from Microsoft and the startup industry. If you are a developer, there is a lot of content across the Azure AI, application platform, database, developer services, and infrastructure stack you can put on your watch list based on the models, use cases, and tools you use. I highly recommend checking out the session catalog to discover sessions that are most relevant to you. Popular AI toolchain solutions such as Arize, LlamaIndex, Pinecone, Weights & Biases, and Hugging Face are also featured in the content.
Thousands of startups and at-scale software development companies are innovating with Microsoft. D-ID, for example, provides a Natural User Interface (NUI)-based immersive content platform for businesses specializing in customer experience, marketing, and sales. Enveda, a biotechnology company, uses AI-powered tools to identify and characterize a wide range of molecules produced by living organisms—the vast majority of which have never been explored by science—creating a database of chemical biodiversity. Cribl, the Data Engine for IT and Security, partners with Microsoft to make its data management capabilities available to enterprises to help improve security posture and enhance visibility.
This is truly the era of AI and cloud-first companies are at the forefront of this wave. Join us at Microsoft Ignite 2024 and let’s build the future together! Btw, if you are looking to quickly get started with building apps on Azure for common AI use cases in as little as 5 mins, I highly recommend checking out the AI App Template Gallery.
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