Microsoft is bringing generative AI to its security products

Microsoft (MSFT) announced on Wednesday that it’s adding generative AI technology to some of its most important security services via its Microsoft Security Copilot.

The news, part of the company’s Ignite conference held in Seattle, Wash., comes as Microsoft continues to take advantage of the explosion in interest in generative AI, which kicked off with the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022.

Generative AI is a form of AI software that is able to use predictive capabilities to search for and provide answers to user queries using natural language.

Microsoft says it is now combining its Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender XDR, and Microsoft Security Copilot into a single platform that will allow cybersecurity workers to search for and address threats in English via generative AI. Other languages are coming in the future.

Microsoft’s Sentinel is a platform that allows cybersecurity professionals to detect and hunt for threats, while Microsoft Defender helps them protect against, and address, attacks. Microsoft Security Copilot provides a means for cybersecurity workers to ask questions about threats and attacks and get responses based on whether and where potential attacks can or have hit an enterprise’s systems.

“Coordinating response is now easier and quicker for analysts of every level,” Microsoft corporate vice president of security, compliance, identity, and privacy Vasu Jakkal said in a statement.

She added: “In addition, unified hunting now gives analysts the ability to query all [security information and event management] and [extended detection and response] data in one place to uncover threats and take appropriate remediation action.”

The company also announced that it’s bringing Security Copilot to a number of its existing data protection offerings including Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Entra, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Intune, and Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management (EASM).

Purview is Microsoft’s data compliance tool, while Entra is the company’s access management platform. Defender for Cloud is Microsoft’s broader security software, Intune is its security platform for endpoint devices like employees’ computers, and Defender EASM is a way for companies to take a look at the threats facing their various external-facing properties such as websites.

While the company is announcing new generative AI security capabilities, it hasn’t provided word on when it will make the technologies broadly available to all enterprise customers. As of now they’re still in the preview stage.

According to Jakkal, Microsoft is holding off on a broader release while it works to eliminate the possibility that the software’s generative AI hallucinates. Hallucinations are pieces of information that generative AI platforms offer as responses to queries that appear accurate, but are actually false.

“This is an absolutely new technology, and in security, unlike other segments, you can't have hallucinations and things like that, because if you get wrong answers, then that is going to have a large impact,” Jakkal said in an interview.

Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. He's been covering the tech industry since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @DanielHowley.

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