微软欲建人工智能网络会议平台，邀外部开发者“入坑”

今年三月，微软推出了面向职场环境的Teams团队聊天服务平台。面临谷歌、Slack和Facebook等竞争平台的围剿，为了进一步改善Teams平台的服务体验，微软公司上周三公布了几种让第三方开发者参与构建平台应用的方法。

在华盛顿州雷德蒙德召开的微软Build 2017大会上，微软CEO萨特亚•纳德纳表示，企业的会议并非“开完就完了”。每个会议开完后，还需要员工做很多跟进的工作。

纳德拉认为，在会前准备、会议规划和会后跟进等一系列流程中，微软的Office 365工具套件都是大有可为的——比如它的日历应用。纳德拉更是尤为重视微软的Teams应用，因为它可以说是人们参与网络会议的一扇“大门”。

不过微软光靠自己是很难构建起预期中Teams平台的全部功能的，所以它需要借助外部编程人员的力量来填补这个缺口。纳德拉建议开发者利用微软的Microsoft Graph数据库构建Teams平台的商业应用。这个数据库中的数据可以映射出微软用户之间的关系，以及他们的设备、工作习惯和所使用的微软软件的情况。

纳德拉表示，通过构建基于Microsoft Graph数据库的应用程序，开发者们可以创建出能够在多种设备（如手机和PC端）上运行的服务。这样一来，用户就能更好地随时掌握自己的工作任务情况。

微软公司产品营销经理劳拉•琼斯随后演示了一个基于Microsoft Graph的假想Teams应用，该应用可以在多种设备上运行。它还使用了来自职业社交网络领英（LinkedIn）的数据（领英也是微软旗下公司）。即便用户在开车的时候，也能通过这个应用参加网络会议。

Teams应用还连接了微软的语音数字助手“小娜”。因此，琼斯可以通过微软尚未正式发布的联网扬声器Invoke向“小娜”发布指令，查看日历应用中即将召开的会议，以及设置自动回复等等。

琼斯还表示，该应用还能通过她的微软Xbox游戏机甚至是车载电脑向她发送提醒。这样一来，可以说工作已经渗透到她的生活的方方面面。

“有了这样的体验，我几乎能把任何设备都变成一台工作设备。”琼斯表示。

“小娜来了！#微软Build大会上，微软Teams和Graph服务也登台了！”

——路易斯•贝尔特伦（@darkicebeam），2017年5月10日

会上，琼斯还展示了如何利用Teams平台召开多人网络会议，这个功能有点类似谷歌最新改进的商业聊天及视频应用Hangouts。另外她还让Teams的聊天机器人检索了一位参会设计师的工作信息。

最后，琼斯还表示，编程人员将可以利用基于人工智能的微软语音识别技术，自动将会议内容翻译成“我选择的语言”。

当然，这只是一次概念展示而已。但它也向我们描绘了微软眼中未来的职场互动将是怎样的一幅图景。

然而微软要想让足够多的开发者心甘情愿地替它打造这些功能，并且按照它的想法来为它效力，那么它要做的可不只是一次花哨的展示这么简单。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

The technology giant debuted Wednesday several ways that third-party developers can build apps to improve Microsoft's Teams chat service for the workplace, which was introduced in March amid fierce competition from rival chat apps from Google (goog, -0.36%), Slack, and Facebook (fb, -0.13%).

At Microsoft’s annual Build conference in Redmond, Wash., CEO Satya Nadella explained that business meetings are not a “one-time thing” but rather require a lot of follow up by employees after they conclude.

It’s this long cycle of prepping, planning, and following-up that Nadella believes Microsoft’s various Office 365 tools like its calendar app can help improve. The Teams app is especially crucial for Nadella because it works as the gateway for people to join online meetings.

However, Microsoft can’t create all of Team’s features by itself, so it needs outside coders to fill in the gaps. Nadella urged developers to consider building business apps for Teams that siphon data from the so-called Microsoft Graph, a data repository that maps the relationships between Microsoft users, their devices, work habits, and the Microsoft software they use.

By building apps that tap into the Microsoft Graph, developers can create services that function across multiple devices like phones and personal computers, he continued. In that way, users would be able to better stay on top of their business tasks.

Microsoft product marketing manager Laura Jones then gave a demo of a hypothetical-Teams app powered by the Microsoft Graph that works across several devices. It also used information from the career-oriented social network LinkedIn, which Microsoft owns, and connected people into business meetings—even while driving a car.

Because the Teams app was wired to Microsoft’s voice-activated digital assistant Cortana, Jones could command it, via Microsoft’s yet-to-be-released Invoke web-connected speaker, to check for upcoming meetings in her calendar and set out-of-office reminders.

She said the app could also send her notifications through her video game console Microsoft Xbox and the on-board computer of her car, so her work essentially followed her in every aspect of her life.

“With experiences like these, I can turn any device into a productivity device,” Jones said.

Cortana time! #MSBuild Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Graph on stage as well ! pic.twitter.com/8ULZcuvAKG

- Luis Beltran (@darkicebeam) May 10, 2017

She showed how she could conduct a meeting with multiple people, similar to Google’s revamped Hangouts business chat and video apps, while asking a Teams chat-bot to retrieve information for attendees on a designer’s work portfolio.

Finally, she said coders would be able to use Microsoft’s artificial intelligence-powered speech recognition technology to automatically transcribe the meeting into “the language of my choice.”

Of course, this was only a demonstration, but it highlights the type of workplace interactions Microsoft believes will take place in the future.

Whether Microsoft can convince enough developers to help it build these capabilities and have them work as intended will take more than a conference presentation.