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ZDNET's key takeaways
Microsoft Marketplace offers more than 3,000 AI apps and agents.
It's a fusion of Azure Marketplace and AppSource.
The idea is to make it easier for businesses to shop for AI tools.
Microsoft is getting into the AI dealership business.
On Thursday, the company announced the launch of Microsoft Marketplace, a virtual shopping center built atop Microsoft Cloud where businesses can shop for cloud services, as well as more than 3,000 AI apps and agents.
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"Microsoft Marketplace gives you access to thousands of AI apps and agents from our rich partner ecosystem designed to automate tasks, accelerate decision-making and unlock value across your business," Alysa Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft's Commercial Cloud and AI division, wrote in a company blog post.
The new marketplace is a fusion of Microsoft's Azure Marketplace, which launched in 2014 as an online directory for cloud services, and Microsoft AppSource, which debuted two years later as a virtual marketplace for business apps. It's available now across the US and will be available in more global markets soon, according to Taylor's blog post.
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While Microsoft aims to become a trusted provider of AI services for its massive cloud services customer base, it's simultaneously working to expand its AI offerings through Copilot via a partnership with Anthropic. It's also reportedly building a first-of-its kind marketplace where publishers can sell their content to be licensed for use by Copilot and eventually other AI products.
Finding the AI needles in the haystack
The core idea behind Microsoft Marketplace is to streamline the process of shopping for and deploying AI solutions for enterprise customers at a time when new AI-powered apps and agents are proliferating at a breakneck speed.
All of the apps and agents now on offer through the marketplace are compatible with Microsoft Cloud, meaning that any business that already relies on Microsoft's cloud computing services can quickly and easily integrate the new tools into their workflow across platforms like Azure, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Security.
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That also means that customers using the new marketplace don't have to worry about cybersecurity risks that the onboarding of a new AI tool might otherwise carry with it.
"By integrating offerings from Marketplace directly into the Microsoft Cloud, IT is equipped with management and control tools that enable both innovation and governance," Taylor wrote. "When you acquire a Copilot agent or an app running on Azure from Microsoft Marketplace, it's provisioned and distributed to team members aligned to your security and governance standards."
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Microsoft isn't the only company betting that it can profit by serving as an intermediary between AI developers and businesses that are looking to onboard the technology (and which are also perhaps a bit baffled by the sheer variety of new apps and agents that are available).
Amazon Web Services recently launched its own virtual marketplace through which customers can shop for agents from developers like Anthropic, IBM, and Perplexity. Software company CrowdStrike and Meta have also developed a set of benchmarks intended to help businesses sift through a growing selection of AI-powered cybersecurity tools.