May 25, 20233 min read

Microsoft Aligns with OpenAI on Chat Plugins

Microsoft has revealed a joint commitment with OpenAI to support and grow the AI plugins ecosystem

blog thumbnail

At the recent Microsoft Build conference in 2023, a significant announcement was made that is set to revolutionize how users interact with Microsoft's range of products. Microsoft, in a joint commitment with OpenAI, announced their decision to employ the same OpenAPI implementation for their chat plugins, a design used by ChatGPT, marking a significant stride towards the democratization of AI-powered chat tools​​.

Microsoft's suite of copilot offerings, including Bing Chat, Dynamics 365 Copilot, Windows Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot, are all set to benefit from this change. These plugins, which will be integrated with popular Microsoft 365 products such as Teams and Outlook, will leverage generative AI models, making technology more accessible through the most universal interface—natural language​.

Microsoft's approach to generative AI is centered on humans, focusing on augmenting human agency rather than replacing it. This human-centric design ethos, termed "Copilot," seeks to tackle the growing volume of digital data, a phenomenon that has often diverted attention away from innovation and impeded productivity. As part of this initiative, Microsoft is empowering developers to integrate their apps and services into Microsoft 365 Copilot, aiming to reach hundreds of millions of people where they work every day and create a whole new way of work​.

The plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot are designed to augment the capabilities of AI systems. They allow these systems to interact with APIs from other software and services, retrieve real-time information, incorporate company and other business data, and perform new types of computations. There are three types of plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot: ChatGPT plugins, Teams message extensions, and Microsoft Power Platform connectors. These plugins enable developers to leverage their existing software and tooling investments and skills​​.

Customers of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program will have access to more than 50 plugins from partners including Atlassian, Adobe, ServiceNow, Thomson Reuters, Moveworks, and Mural. Thousands of additional line-of-business and third-party plugins will be enabled in the coming months as Microsoft integrates existing Teams message extensions and Microsoft Power Platform connectors with Microsoft 365 Copilot. This extensive ecosystem of plugins promises to bring unprecedented value to mutual customers, potentially transforming how work is done​​.

Developers play a key role in this journey. With Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and CLI, developers can create Teams message extensions that will function as plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft is also introducing new capabilities in Teams Toolkit to facilitate the creation, testing, and debugging of plugins. Developers can bring any API described by the OpenAPI specification to Microsoft 365 Copilot quickly with the plugin creation experience in Teams Toolkit. Developers can further customize the user experience when their plugin is invoked through Adaptive Cards​​.

Furthermore, Microsoft 365 Copilot can access structured data from Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform stored in Microsoft Dataverse, in addition to productivity and collaboration data in Microsoft Graph. This means copilot responses will be grounded in both your business data and user data in Microsoft Graph. Developers can import data into Dataverse through Microsoft Power Platform connectors​​.

However, there's still more to this story. More details about the specific ways users can utilize these plugins for their benefit and the implications of this announcement for the larger AI and software industry are yet to be fully explored. Further research will need to be done to give a comprehensive view of this exciting development.