Yesterday, Microsoft kicked-off #MSBuild, one of its premier developer conferences for developers at the Washington State Conference Center in Seattle. Microsoft Build a 3-day developer conference followed by an extra day of several other activities.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft started the keynote.

Here are the key takeaways from Satya’s keynote. Let's start with some data.

Day 1 keynote was mostly focused around artificial intelligence and cloud.

“AI is everywhere”, said Satya. The focus of Microsoft is now building intelligent applications for intelligent devices using Azure, the most intelligent cloud on the planet.

Other key topics covered in the keynote includes conversation-as-a-platform, Bots, IoT, and smart systems. The message was loud and clear. Microsoft is betting on AI and intelligent cloud.

Scott Guthrie’s keynote was focused around Azure and intelligent cloud. Scott Hanselman shows cool demos around Azure and mobile.

AI and Cognitive Services

Harry Shum’s keynote was focused on AI development. Harry’s message was clear, i.e. Microsoft is brining AI to every developer.

Microsoft added more APIs to its Cognitive Services APIs list. Now Microsoft Cognitive Services has 29 APIs. The new APIs include Custom Vision Services, Bing Custom Search, Custom Decision Service and Video Indexer.

Microsoft also announced a new MVP category for AI developers. Now developers working on Cognitive Services, Bot Framework, and Azure ML will be considered for this award.

Get started with Microsoft Cognitive Services here >