What Microsoft’s numbers say about the state of the tech economy

Many parts of Microsoft’s business are showing signs of a storm. But if its quarterly results were an instrument for measuring the tech economy, a change in demand for cloud services is as close as the industry will get to a barometer.

• "Just as we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize that spend," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts and investors on the company’s earnings call. In other words, companies are spending less, and trying to get more out of what they’re spending. Read more. 

The sudden rise of ChatGPT — the AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI and powered by Microsoft’s cloud technology — is causing educators across the country to rethink how they teach and assess student work.

• New guidelines from the University of Washington attempt to balance the benefits and drawbacks, addressing the logistical and ethical challenges of AI (including cheating) while calling technology “a vital part of advancing knowledge.” Read more.

In a former Boeing manufacturing facility near Seattle’s waterfront, a six-year old startup is readying a system it says will change surgery.

• Proprio‘s technology enables surgeons to see key structures on a screen in three dimensions in real time. The system helps clinicians place incisions and guide placement of hardware, such as devices that can help straighten a spine. Read more.

A new report says Washington state provides one of America’s best settings for expanding the frontiers of quantum information science — but those frontiers are so strange and new that it’s hard to get a handle on their potential.

• The report, released by the Washington Technology Industry Association, also says the state’s quantum ventures aren’t taking full advantage of homegrown talent. Read more. 

• Stay tuned for more photos and details of the new event space, later today on GeekWire.com.