Satya Nadella at Microsoft Build 2016 Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Microsoft made clear that it is betting big on the future of bots, after making two major AI announcements at the Microsoft Build 2016 conference.

CEO Satya Nadella personally introduced a cleverer Cortana (Windows' AI desktop assistant) at the developer's conference in San Francisco, and a Bot Framework that'll allow developers to build bots of their own. "Bots are the new apps," Nadella said, describing a future where users ask bots to complete tasks like booking taxis and ordering food.


The improved Cortana will be part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update on its release this summer. Nadella promised that the AI assistant would be "a personal digital assistant that knows you, knows your world and is always with you across all your devices". He demonstrated how Cortana will use contextual information from conversations and calendar invites to book tickets without the need for the user to input any data.

Cortana behaved impeccably throughout the presentation, a far-cry from Microsoft's foul-mouthed Twitter chatbot Tay. Nadella mentioned the short-lived experiment, which returned on Wednesday only to be taken offline again after boasting about smoking weed in front of the police. "We want to build technology so it gets the best of humanity, not the worst," said Nadella. "We quickly realised it was not up to this mark. So we're back to the drawing board."

Microsoft also demonstrated its HoloLens augmented reality goggles Microsoft

With the release of the Microsoft Bot Framework, developers will now be able to have their own go at creating their own, hopefully less controversial, chatbots. The framework will allow developers to build AI bots that can work within apps like Skype, Telegram or Slack to help users out when they talk about ordering a pizza or similar tasks.


Clearly other companies are fixated on the same idea. Facebook in particular is working to turn its Messenger platform into an all-in-on AI assistant, and on Thursday launched a new feature allowing users to view air travel information inside the app. Whichever platform you use, human conversation would be at the heart of these interactions, Microsoft's Nadella said: "We want to take the power of human language and apply it more pervasively to all of the computing interface [...] in order to do this you have to infuse these computers with intelligence."

Microsoft announced a host of other minor developments in its nearly three hour long keynote. The Windows 10 Anniversary Update will include upgrades to the stylus interface Windows Ink, including the ability to turn handwritten dates into calendar events.

Elsewhere, Microsoft are merging its Windows and Xbox app stores to encourage developers to make software that works universally across Microsoft platforms. It was also announced that the Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality goggles are now being shipped to developers in the US and Canada. While there was no mention of a consumer release of the $3,000 (£2,090) goggles, Nasa are already using HoloLens to try out augmented reality experiments in space.