REDMOND, USA (AP) – Microsoft on Tuesday reported a 9 per cent increase in profit for the January-March quarter as growth in cloud computing sales helped bolster its plans to expand its use of artificial intelligence.

The company reported quarterly profit of US$18.3 billion, or US$2.45 per share, beating Wall Street expectations for earnings of US$2.24 a share.

The software maker posted revenue of US$52.9 billion in the period, its third fiscal quarter, up 7 per cent from the same period a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet expected Microsoft to post revenue of US$51.02 billion for the quarter.

The quarter marked an ambitious push by Microsoft to capitalise on its investments in artificial intelligence and a close partnership with San Francisco-based start-up OpenAI through the February release of a new AI chatbot feature on its search engine Bing.

Microsoft is also integrating similar AI tools into the cloud computing and software products it sells to big businesses and organisations, though it’s not immediately apparent to what extent the AI features are playing a role in overall sales.

Microsoft’s personal computing business, centred on its Windows software, was widely expected to continue a deterioration that began last year due to economic uncertainties and crimped demand. Quarterly sales from that segment dropped 9 per cent to US$13.3 billion, the company said Tuesday.

Making up for that decline was a 16 per cent increase in revenue from Microsoft’s cloud-based business segment to US$22.1 billion for the quarter. Revenue also grew 11 per cent to US$17.5 billion from Microsoft’s productivity software segment centred around its Office suite of workplace products such as email.