Microsoft Reports Slower Azure Cloud Growth; Shares Drop.

Microsoft's Azure cloud service experienced slower growth in the last quarter, disappointing investors who were hoping for a return on the company's investments in artificial intelligence (AI) products. While Microsoft's total revenue increased by 15% to $64.7 billion, Azure's revenue growth decelerated to 29% from the previous quarter's 31%. However, about 8 percentage points of Azure's growth was attributed to AI, up from 7 percentage points in the prior quarter. Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, has been incorporating AI technology into the company's product line, including digital assistants called Copilots. Despite the slowdown in Azure's growth, Microsoft's capital expenditures for data centers and AI services increased to $19 billion. [Extracted from the article]