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Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

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Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#61

Post by nolok »

coldpie wrote: post #40
neilalexander wrote: post #10

I would think that if they actually spent the time and money fixing the core functionality of their core products (like Windows and Office) that they might have a much easier time promoting things like Copilot. Instead they leave their users wondering why they're so hell-bent on shoehorning AI into a Start menu that takes whole seconds longer to open than it should or into Windows Search that regularly fails to find…

Microsoft is a public company. That means their primary product is not products or services, it's their stock. Selling products & services can be an advertisement for their stock, but there are other methods of convincing people to buy their stock, too. Currently the stock market only wants stocks that have "AI" associated with them. It doesn't matter whether users like it or not, because having a viable business is…

It's basically the reason this bubble not only exists but has a chance not to pop : there is so much stock value in it that the big tech all want to keep feeding it, and they're sitting on so much cashflow they can afford to do it

It's absurd, but that's where it is. And a company like OpenAI basically hangs on it, because they have obligation almost ten time their revenue and the only way this does not deflate quickly is if others keep feeding it cash.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#62

Post by ZeroConcerns »

Well, the major problem Microsoft is facing is that its AI products are not only shoddier than average, which is nothing new for them in many categories, but that this time the competition can actually easily leapfrog them.

Like, I have a 'Copilot' button prominently displayed in my New Outlook on MacOS (the only platform where the app-with-that-designation is sort-of usable), and it's a dropdown menu, and it has... zero items when expanded.

I asked my 'Microsoft 365 Bing Chat AI Bot Powered By ChatGPT' about that, and it wasn't able to tell me how to make that button actually do something, ending the conversation with "yeah, that's sort-of a tease, isn't it?"...

Oh, well, and I actually also have a dedicated Copilot button on my new Lenovo laptop powered-by-Windows-11. And, guess what, it does exactly nothing! I can elect to either assign this button to 'Search', which opens a WebView2 to bing.com (ehhm, yeah, sure, thanks!) or to 'Custom', in which case it informs me that 'nothing' meets the hardware requirements to actually enable that.

So, my question to anyone in the Microsoft C-suite: have you ever tried to, like, actually use, like anything that you're selling? Because if you would have, the failings would have been obvious, right? Right??

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#64

Post by theiz »

neilalexander wrote: post #10

I would think that if they actually spent the time and money fixing the core functionality of their core products (like Windows and Office) that they might have a much easier time promoting things like Copilot. Instead they leave their users wondering why they're so hell-bent on shoehorning AI into a Start menu that takes whole seconds longer to open than it should or into Windows Search that regularly fails to find…

Or do things that actually work. Why, for example, can I not translate a PowerPoint using Copilot in Powerpoint? Why do I need to save it, then upload it into ChatGPT, translate it, then download it again, and open it in PowerPoint for further editing. But at the same time get all kind off nonsense I don't want pushed at me in Windows, like that MSN news clickbait crap.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#65

Post by esskay »

janlukacs wrote: post #12
this_user wrote: post #9

Microsoft's entire business model for decades has been to shove shoddy products down people's throats. And somehow, they have figured out how to do it too, because otherwise Teams wouldn't be used by anyone.

I find it fascinating how they are able to sell their crap software.

Ditto. The more interesting part is how many people will defend it. Presumably some mix of post-purchase rationalisation and inherited assumptions about what's "standard" even when those assumptions stopped being true ages ago.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#66

Post by Havoc »

> I suspect the issues are deeper for Microsoft, who have worked tirelessly under Satya Nadella to create doubt around its products

This reads more like a hit piece than good faith article

(But yeah the MS AI products especially on consumer level are pretty terrible)

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#67

Post by big-and-small »

ripvanwinkle wrote: post #25

I see mentions of Gemini as a fast growing alternative to ChatGPT. Isn't anyone troubled by the fact that for consumers there is no way to keep your data from being used for model training if you want to maintain history of your Gemini chats. ChatGPT respects privacy and allows for maintaining history while also opting out of using ones data for model training

I trust Google ad monopoly to keep my data actually secure. They have a great track record of not sharing their datasets with anyone because this gives them an edge pushing ads down people throats. Google is honest about what they doing. Google also not going away anytime soon so they also not going to sell off their datasets to highest bidder.

And I don't trust Sam Altman and AI.com at all since their whole thing was built on lies. They could start regaining the trust by changing their company name.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#68

Post by benterix »

morkalork wrote: post #38
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they so much want to be a service business than a software business. Microsoft execs are losing sleep over becoming the next IBM, not realizing they are already there and have been for a long time. Their main problem is that they never really learned how to compete on merit, just on first-to-market and all kinds of legal (and illegal) tricks.

To be pedantic, IBM is a service company

This follows from the parents statement.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#69

Post by stackghost »

glimshe wrote: post #5
jimbob45 wrote: post #2

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/microsofts-revenue-by-produ... Helpful chart to draw conclusions

Is Bing now called "Copilot" too?

Copilot .NET Core, not to be confused with Copilot Core, and Microsoft Core Copilot Plus.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#70

Post by BiteCode_dev »

Microsoft has this problem with most of its products.

It's not just AI, it's a market fit and quality problem.

They don't need to solve it, however.

Their strategy has been quite clear: make it barely usable so that is passes muster to auditors, integrate it with systems that corporations need, and sell them on the integrations.

Teams and Azure suck?

So what?

Big companies will pay for that, because it's integrated with their ldap, has an audit trail, gives them the ISO-whatever stamp, and lets them worry about something else.

That the users are miserable is almost never the question for the ones signing the checks.

In a world where box-checking is paramount, this approach is a winning strategy.

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