Microsoft could acquire majority stake in OpenAI, integrate ChatGPT into its products

Microsoft is reportedly considering making a considerable investment of $10 billion in OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT. ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence program that has taken the lead in online discussions since it was intercepted because of its ability to write codes, answer questions, and create reports.

According to a report by The Information, Microsoft intends to include ChatGPT in its office suite, which includes Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint, to increase users’ effectiveness and productivity.

If the investment bid is successful, Microsoft will receive a 49 per cent stake, and other investors will split another 49 per cent. At the same time, the remaining 2% will go to OpenAI’s non-profit parent company.

Furthermore, the report claims that Microsoft will receive 75% of OpenAI’s earnings until it recoups its initial investment.

Read Also: What you need to know about ChatGPT, the chatbot everyone is talking about

Microsoft and OpenAI partnership

This is not the first time Microsoft is investing in the AI firm. In 2019, the tech giant and the AI firm started a partnership to extend Microsoft Azure’s capabilities in large-scale AI systems. The tech giant invested $1 billion in OpenAI to support the building of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

In 2020, Microsoft built in collaboration and exclusively for OpenAI, the supercomputer hosted in Azure was explicitly designed to train that company’s AI models.

In 2021, Microsoft introduced its first product features powered by GPT-3, the powerful natural language model developed by OpenAI. The feature was integrated into Microsoft Power Apps, the low-code app development platform.

Microsoft and OpenAI have also discussed possible ways to integrate GPT into Bing to improve the user experience. The feature is reportedly supposed to be launched in March this year.

How ChatGPT could impact the Microsoft products

It is unsure what the outcome would be, but ChatGPT might become much better than Clippy, a discontinued Microsoft Office Assistant.

Users will be able to improve their Outlook search results with ChatGPT. In addition, AI can help generate and suggest email responses, among other things, using only natural language.

It can also be helpful in Excel for analyzing data and text. ChatGPT has ingested 570 GB of data, according to BBC Science Focus. Also, ChatGPT can help create and change text templates in Word or Outlook, respond to questions about some topics, or add imaginative text modules.

With AI, Microsoft also offers image generation models for PowerPoint presentations to help users extract and summarize data from Teams Meeting transcripts.

Although Microsoft already employs a range of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in its productivity software, including Word, Powerpoints, Teams, and even Microsoft Editor, the addition of ChatGPT will help increase its dominance in the office software industry.

The biggest challenge may be gathering reliable data for the AI model and privacy concerns like customized models for individuals without compromising data.

Read Also: Why Africa has no other choice but to embrace Artificial Intelligence

Could it be Microsoft’s strong foot against its competitor?

Microsoft and Google are two of the biggest technological behemoths in the world today and fierce rivals. They both compete as major cloud scalers with Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Each uses artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance its operations, and they both have search engines.

They provide various AI services, such as computer vision, natural language processing, and machine learning, and cloud-based platforms and infrastructure for building and executing AI applications.

As they seek to add new technologies and experience to grow their services in the AI and cloud industries, both firms have extensively engaged in collaborations and acquisitions in the field of artificial intelligence.

In contrast, Google may find it difficult to compete with Microsoft’s ChatGPT and OpenAI services in search and productivity tools, given that Microsoft also plans to employ the technology in its Bing search engine.

In addition, Microsoft may make it an add-on tool and monetize it for users of the office suite, which would widen its competitive advantage in the enterprise and consumer software markets.