Microsoft has officially announced the general availability of Copilot in Azure, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of cloud management tools. After an 11-month public preview period, during which hundreds of thousands of users submitted millions of prompts, Copilot in Azure is now ready for widespread adoption, available to all users at no additional cost.
A Year of Public Preview and Customer Feedback
Since its launch in May 2024, Copilot in Azure has been extensively tested and refined based on customer feedback. This AI-powered tool has already demonstrated its potential by saving Microsoft’s developers over 30,000 hours every month. The wide adoption across various sectors, including finance, healthcare, and consumer goods, underscores its versatility and efficiency.
Enhanced Performance and Stability
One of the key improvements highlighted by Ruhiyyih Mahalati, VP and Engineering Manager, is the significant boost in performance. Copilot in Azure’s response time has been improved by over 30% through several strategic upgrades. These include the implementation of newer, quicker base models, enhancements to the frontend using streaming techniques, and optimizations to the backend orchestrator and individual skills. This results in a faster and more reliable user experience.
Uptime and Reliability
Copilot in Azure now boasts an impressive uptime of over 99.9%, ensuring minimal downtime and maximum productivity for users. This reliability is crucial for enterprises relying on cloud services for their operations.
Accessibility and Localization
Microsoft has made substantial efforts to enhance the accessibility of Copilot in Azure. The UI has been updated to meet high accessibility standards, making it more inclusive for a broader range of users. Additionally, Copilot in Azure is now available in 19 languages, including Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
Commitment to Responsible AI
Microsoft’s commitment to responsible AI is evident in the development of Copilot in Azure. The tool is built with AI fairness, reliability, safety, privacy, security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability at its core, aligning with Microsoft’s Responsible AI principles. Each release undergoes multiple rounds of testing to identify and mitigate any harmful behaviors or vulnerabilities.
New Capabilities and Mobile App Enhancements
Copilot in Azure continues to add new capabilities to enhance user productivity. For instance, users can now author Terraform configurations and troubleshoot Azure Kubernetes Service clusters more effectively. The generally available version of the Copilot in Azure Mobile App features bug fixes, performance optimizations, and additional enhancements such as AI chat streaming for real-time conversations and a new cost management skill to monitor and manage Azure spending.
Practical Applications
The practical applications of Copilot in Azure are vast. It helps users navigate the hundreds of services and thousands of resource types offered by Azure, unifying knowledge and data to increase productivity and reduce costs. By allowing users to express their goals in natural language, Copilot in Azure simplifies Azure management, providing high-quality recommendations and performing tasks while respecting organizational policies and privacy.
With its general availability, Copilot in Azure is set to revolutionize how businesses manage their cloud operations, making it an indispensable tool for anyone working with Azure. Whether you’re a developer, an IT administrator, or a business leader, Copilot in Azure is poised to enhance your efficiency and productivity significantly.