The beauty of the tool is that it requires no musical prowess or technical ability to be able to create music, so literally anyone can have a go. Microsoft is jazzing up its Copilot generative AI chatbot with a new musical plug-in that lets you “turn your ideas into songs” without even having to read a note.

“Whenever there is an economic downturn in tech, some of the first budgets that are cut are in DEI, but I don’t think we’ve seen such stark contrast as this year,” said Melinda Briana Epler, founder and CEO of Empovia, which advises companies and leaders to use a research-based culture of equality. The year’s cuts have also impacted smaller, third-party organizations who counted on big tech clients for work, despite the continued growth of those tech giants. The move was part of a broader trend in the wake of the Floyd killing, which sparked societal unrest and drew attention to the power imbalances in corporate America and the tech industry specifically. Corporations pledged to invest millions of dollars to improve diversity in their ranks and support external groups doing work on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. “We’re in a big technology inflection point, and what happens is as AI begins to take off and if organizations are less inclusive, the product is not reflective of the users,” Wilkerson said.

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Suno works by matching the song to cues in your prompt, without revealing the dataset in which its AI is trained on, the company claims that it has mitigated against the risk of plagiarism and copyright issues. Suno’s partnership with Microsoft is particularly poignant at the moment as building consumer AI audio-generation tools and platforms appears to be the next big thing major tech companies are turning their attention and AI capabilities to. Both Facebook and Google have already come out with their own AI audio-generation offerings in partnership with other specialist music-tech companies. Your Microsoft 365 team will acquire the skills they need to ensure a smooth, informed deployment in Windows 10 Powered Devices, Collaboration, Security, and Office 365�or a combination that fits your needs. And with Microsoft authorized training at ONLC you can learn this technology, prepare for professional certification, start a new career in IT, and improve your marketability. Apple, Google and other tech giants are still grappling with displaying and identifying images accurately.

Wilkerson was among experts who told CNBC that DEI work is more important than ever given the growing work on artificial intelligence, which hit breakneck speed in 2023. “To say our progress is not in peril would not be truthful,” AnitaB.org’s Wilkerson said, although she’s optimistic the tide could turn around in 2024. “We’re working with multiple challenges in our society, so we have made a lot of the progress but some of that was erased in the last year. Then you have this backlash against racial reckoning.” Microsoft said it still sent some employees physically, and both Microsoft and Meta told CNBC that Grace Hopper’s virtual option allowed more employees to participate. “Right now with these budgets being entirely limited or cut, we’re just really backpedaling on so much of the work that we’ve done.”

Cuts to internal teams and programs

Stefania Pomponi, founder of Hella Social Impact, said executives have blamed cost-cutting as they’ve canceled contracts with the firm, which consults with companies’ leadership to create more inclusive workplaces through programs and training. Nearly every member of Meta’s Sourcer Development Program, more than 60 workers, was let go from the company as part of its layoff of over 11,000 workers, CNBC learned. They claimed to have received inferior severance packages compared with other workers who were laid off in the same time period. Meta’s Sourcer Development Program was intended to help workers from diverse backgrounds obtain careers in corporate technology recruiting.

• While internal DEI programs have suffered, the cuts were arguably even harder for external organizations who expected the same amount of corporate sponsorship and support from tech companies in 2023 as they had the prior few years.
• They claimed to have received inferior severance packages compared with other workers who were laid off in the same time period.
• Google is also among companies to reduce their spending with Blavity, the organization that puts on AfroTech, according to sources who asked not to be named due to being unauthorized to speak.

In early 2023, big tech leaders, including Google and Meta were among companies that lessened their work with third parties that were counting on projects, according to several organizations and sources who spoke with CNBC. The company said that apprentices are paid a salary for the learning and training they receive as part of the program, and that it reviews compensation annually to ensure alignment with the market. “Apprentices become part of our mission to build great products for every user, and their different experiences help ensure that our products are as diverse as our users,” Google’s Apprenticeships website states.

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A New York Times investigation this year found Apple and Google’s Android software, which underpins most of the world’s smartphones, turned off the ability to visually search for primates for fear of labeling a person as an animal. “We do have a significant amount of our existing corporate partners that are telling us ‘Hey, we can’t participate this year because our DEI team doesn’t even exist anymore,'” said Blavity’s Simone White, who declined to name specific companies. “Week to week, we have new contacts at companies, and folks we worked with for years to organize this work are no longer there.” Google and Meta also made cuts to personnel who were in charge of recruiting underrepresented people, according to several sources and documentation. “Our commitment to DEI remains at the center of who we are as a company,” a Meta spokesperson wrote in a statement to CNBC. “We continue to intentionally design equitable and fair practices to drive progress across our people, product, policy and partnerships pillars.”

“When George Floyd began to become the topic of conversations, companies and executives doubled down on their commitments and here we are only a couple years later, and folks are looking for opportunities to cut those teams,” said Devika Brij, CEO of Brij the Gap Consulting, which works with tech companies’ DEI efforts. Some large tech companies, including Meta, pulled https://remotemode.net/become-a-project-manager/microsoft-teams/ back from sponsorship or attendance for employees to attend Grace Hopper 2023, according to sources who asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak to the media. Some companies, including Microsoft, ended up sending some leaders to attend virtually so they wouldn’t have to pay for travel, according to two sources who wished to remain anonymous.