Microsoft has shown record profits thanks to AI

Microsoft has published a revenue and profit report that surpassed analysts' estimates due to the growth of cloud computing and Office productivity software.

The company said that artificial intelligence (AI) products stimulated its sales, and according to the forecast, revenue in the main segments in the current quarter will match or even exceed Wall Street estimates.

Earnings were $2.45 per share in the fiscal third quarter, beating Wall Street estimates ($2.23). The growth of the company's cloud business, Azure, was 27% for the quarter, also being better than analysts' expectations (26.6%). Microsoft's revenue grew by 7% to $52.9 billion in the quarter, experts' forecasts suggested an increase to $51.02 billion. After the publication of the report, Microsoft shares rose by 8.3% in the postmarket.

It is noted that the bulk of Microsoft's sales still account for the sale of software and cloud computing services. However, thanks to the partnership with OpenAI (the creator of ChatGPT) and the improvement of the Bing search engine using AI technology, Microsoft has attracted massive attention. 

The company already has more than 2,500 Azure-OpenAI customers, and it continues to integrate artificial intelligence into a number of its products. Bing search engine, which has long been an analogue of Google, has 100 million users per day, and the number of downloads has increased dramatically since the addition of artificial intelligence functions there.

However, there are still areas in the company that are experiencing some problems. In particular, this is Microsoft Windows, since this segment of the company is heavily dependent on PC sales, which have shown a decline in recent quarters.