{"id":272245,"date":"2018-09-19T07:13:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T05:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=272245"},"modified":"2018-09-19T07:13:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T05:13:48","slug":"microsoft-corp-rolls-out-new-features-that-make-use-of-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/cloud-hosting\/272245\/microsoft-corp-rolls-out-new-features-that-make-use-of-artificial-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Corp rolls out new features that make use of artificial intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>Microsoft Corp rolled out\u00a0new features for sales and customer-service software that make use of artificial intelligence and its\u00a0HoloLens augmented reality goggles, stepping up competition with Salesforce.com Inc.<\/p>\n<p>Remote Assist lets\u00a0field service workers use the goggles to fix equipment or take other\u00a0actions guided by a remote expert who can watch the process and draw instructions in the workers\u2019 fields of view, Lorraine Bardeen, general manager, Microsoft Mixed Reality, said in a press briefing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Energy giant Chevron Corp is among customers using the devices like this.\u00a0Another use case: Remote training for factory workers on new equipment.<\/p>\n<p>A second Microsoft service lets companies use HoloLens to map physical spaces and move virtual versions of equipment around to plan before actual moves take place. These will be available as part of the company\u2019s Dynamics 365 cloud-based programs.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft also unveiled AI-powered products for Dynamics 365, including a virtual\u00a0tool that lets customer-service agents shift calls to a chatbot that can interact with customers and triage incoming calls, according Alysa Taylor, vice president, Business Applications &amp; Industry.<\/p>\n<p>Another offering\u00a0uses AI to analyze social media sentiment on a company\u2019s products to help\u00a0marketing staff\u00a0generate customer loyalty. There\u2019s also one for sales staff that analyzes\u00a0prospects and\u00a0recommends leads to prioritize.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft\u2019s Dynamics products are growing quickly, but they\u00a0lag market leader Salesforce.com, which is also using AI for its marketing and customer-relationship management software.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/cloud-hosting\/266817\/microsoft-launches-chat-based-app-kaizala-pro-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft launches chat-based app Kaizala Pro in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft Corp. rolled out new features for sales and customer-service software that make use of artificial intelligence and its HoloLens augmented reality goggles, stepping up competition with Salesforce.com Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":261525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[26,1011],"class_list":["post-272245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-hosting","tag-headline","tag-microsoft-corp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272247,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272245\/revisions\/272247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}