Services, Tools Support Natural Language Interfaces

Services and tools that enable the development of intelligent agents, the use of image and speech recognition, and integration with Microsoft’s big data stores comprise a user interface design philosophy the company calls Conversations as a Platform. New and existing offerings could help developers build applications that support natural language communication to simplify user interfaces, while leveraging Microsoft’s investments in Cortana, Bing, and machine learning to make applications more capable. However, many of the recently announced components are in preview and will require improvements before robust solutions can be built upon them.

New, Existing Offerings Enable Design Philosophy

At Build 2016, Microsoft discussed its belief that user experiences with PCs and devices will become less centered on discrete applications and Web browsers and more on functionality accessed by digital agents that span services and intelligently access vast data sets. This evolution to the so-called Conversations as a Platform could increase user productivity and help organizations ease customer access to products and services. For example, instead of using several applications or Web sites to set up a catered meeting with a group of colleagues, a user could ask a digital agent to do so, using a single natural language command.