Aptos Labs Taps Microsoft Azure to Drive Web3 Adoption

Blockchain company Aptos Labs has teamed with Microsoft to drive Web3 adoption.

The partnership will employ Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to help mainstream Web3, according to a Wednesday (Aug. 9) press release.

“Onboarding new users to Web3 can be time-consuming and complex, which may deter people from exploring the ecosystem,” Aptos said in the release. “There’s a common perception gap between the utility of blockchain and user skepticism around how simple it is to use.”

Challenges include understanding how blockchain and decentralization benefit users personally, creating wallets to onboard into Web3 and changing fiat currency to cryptocurrency, the release said.

To get the partnership underway and overcome these obstacles, Aptos Labs said in the release it will roll out Aptos Assistant, “a responsible, user-friendly and secure assistant bridging Web2 to Web3 for the everyday internet user and organization.”

This tool will help users onboard into Web3 by asking any kind of question regarding the Aptos blockchain ecosystem using natural language. It can also guide developers as they build smart contracts and decentralized apps — and point them toward “relevant, accessible resources,” per the release.

“Artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies are quickly converging for one important reason: They are both generational breakthroughs that profoundly impact the evolution of the internet and shape society,” said Aptos Labs CEO Mo Shaikh in the release. “Together with Microsoft, our shared vision is to ensure that this technology is accessible to more people and organizations than ever before.”

PYMNTS looked at Microsoft’s AI efforts last month through the lens of its competition with Google for dominance in that sector.

“It hasn’t even been a full calendar year since the technology was first commercialized at scale by Microsoft and OpenAI, and already the titles of winner, loser and upstart are trading hands among Big Tech firms — all of whom have seen their market caps and valuations soar alongside mentions of the technology in their respective earnings calls,” that report said.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said on an earnings call with analysts July 25 that more than 11,000 organizations have begun using the company’s Azure Open AI Service, and the company’s capital spending will grow “sequentially each quarter,” while Microsoft continues to spend on expanding more of its cloud and data center infrastructure to bolster its AI technology.