The era of artificial intelligence platformization has arrived. At Microsoft Ignite 2024, innovation and simplicity intertwined as technology leaders and vendors showcased cutting-edge advancements for AI simplification, spanning cloud and multicloud ecosystems.

“You’re starting to see a greater awareness that the network is not just basic plumbing,” said Bob Laliberte (pictured, left), analyst at theCUBE Research. “It’s required for these highly distributed environments and especially when you’re going to cloud and multicloud environments. That connectivity is going to be critical to ensure that all the data gets to where it needs to go and that people can access the information they need to access. And Aviatrix, for a long time now, has been pioneering that multicloud networking space.”

Laliberte was joined by fellow theCUBE Research analyst Rob Strechay (right) for an analyst wrap-up segment covering Microsoft Ignite 2024, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the industry’s collective effort at AI simplification, enabling organizations to innovate with confidence in an interconnected, AI-driven future.

AI simplification through copilots and professional services

Microsoft Corp.’s push for AI simplicity was evident in its focus on Copilots, designed to streamline productivity through user-friendly interfaces. Nutanix Inc. also made headlines by announcing its Enterprise AI solution, operable across diverse platforms, including Azure Kubernetes Service. Professional services, such as those offered by Dell Technologies Inc., focus on guiding organizations to “day-two operations,” ensuring teams are equipped to leverage AI independently, according to Strechay.

“They made this announcement a couple of weeks or actually last week,” he said. “What was interesting about it was, again, it can run on containers, it can run on AKS or Azure Kubernetes Service, it can run on-prem on theirs. It doesn’t even have to be the same services under the hood. They’re being able to then bring that storage as well backward and forwards, which I thought was really interesting.”

Finally, the critical role of education was highlighted, with Microsoft’s initiatives aimed at upskilling organizations in AI and networking technologies. Training programs, focused on prompt engineering and operational frameworks, were recognized as essential for driving productivity and comfort with AI tools.

Here’s the complete video conversation, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of Microsoft Ignite 2024: 

Photo: SiliconANGLE