Microsoft ramps up AI game with bet on no-code startup Builder.ai

London – Microsoft It has invested an undisclosed amount in Builder.ai, a startup that helps companies deliver apps without any coding experience, doubling down on its AI efforts.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, Builder.ai is in the camp of startups making so-called “no-code” and “low-code” platforms. Its software allows anyone from tech-shy artists looking to sell their work online to design professionals with limited programming experience to develop and manage applications.

Through a strategic partnership, Microsoft plans to integrate Builder.ai’s AI assistant Natasha into Teams chat and video software to allow customers to build business applications within the platform. The company said Builder.ai will also improve Natasha by leveraging Microsoft’s artificial intelligence algorithms to make her appear more human.

Builder.ai said the collaboration will give Builder.ai and its customers access to Microsoft Azure’s suite of cloud tools, including a range of artificial intelligence services it offers through an association with US startup OpenAI. She added that developers on the Microsoft Azure platform will also be able to take advantage of the Builder.ai expert network.

“We’re all convinced that the future of software is going to be where the customer doesn’t need to be technical,” Dougal told CNBC in an interview. “What we’re really doing is bringing together a world where customers can build software, run software, and host software.”

“For Microsoft, it opens up not only an entirely new customer who is becoming a digital native, but also someone coming into Azure Cloud, as this software building leverages core parts of the Microsoft stack, as well as the Builder stack. So I think from that perspective, it’s really holistic. And the mission really is to enable the next 100 million software applications.”

John Tinter, vice president of business development at Microsoft, said the deal represents “an extension of our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”

“We see Builder.ai creating an entirely new category that empowers everyone to be a developer, and our new and deeper collaboration fueled by Azure AI will bring the combined strength of both companies to businesses around the world,” Tinter said in a statement.

Builder.ai and Microsoft declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Microsoft has significantly expanded its investment in AI recently, investing $13 billion in OpenAI, the company behind the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, and integrating the company’s AI language processing software into the Bing search engine and Office productivity apps.

The deal marks another attempt by Microsoft to ramp up its efforts in artificial intelligence, which has become a major focus for the company as it looks to become a leader in technology and compete more aggressively in search with fellow technology giant Google.

the the alphabetA proprietary company has made its own investments in artificial intelligence, seeking to make digital entities more conversational and human-like with its LaMDA language processing model, and has rolled out a competitor to ChatGPT called Bard.

Microsoft already offers its own set of no-code application development tools. With Builder.ai, she hopes to develop her expertise in this field.

One of the critical elements of the Builder.ai deal, Dougal said, was the endorsement of the world’s second most valuable technology company.

“If I imagine we are going to talk to a large organization… who will ask us about competence at that point?” Dougal told CNBC. “It gives you significant leverage from going to market (the strategy), which in itself benefits both partners.”

Builder.ai has raised a total of $195 million in funding to date, according to Crunchbase data. It is one of many startups that has benefited from the renewed investor interest in AI technology recently.

At the same time, advances in technology have led to fears from researchers that it is getting more powerful. In March, a group of tech heavyweights including Elon Musk and apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak has written an open letter calling for a six-month halt to developing AI more powerful than GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest big language model.

He watches: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman talks about the ChatGPT boom and the need for regulation