{"id":5935,"date":"2023-07-20T16:05:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T16:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/leadership\/insights-from-a-microsoft-executive\/"},"modified":"2023-07-20T16:05:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T16:05:16","slug":"insights-from-a-microsoft-executive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=5935","title":{"rendered":"Insights From A Microsoft Executive"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When AI is discussed inside companies, there’s an understandable mix of trepidation and excitement. On the one hand, there are unknown workforce impacts; for example, a recent Goldman Sachs report estimates that massive changes from AI could “expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation.”<\/p>\n

On the other hand, AI offers freedom from some of what Microsoft calls “digital debt” (the excessive inflow of data, emails, meetings, and notifications). In their recent Work Trend Index Annual Report, Microsoft finds that “Nearly 2 in 3 people (64%) say they struggle with having the time and energy to do their job\u2014and those people are 3.5x more likely to also struggle with innovation and strategic thinking.” By automating away some of the more mundane and frustrating parts (e.g., inefficient meetings, responding to emails, searching for information, etc.), it’s likely that we’d have far more time for the truly interesting pieces of our jobs.<\/p>\n

Getting people to embrace excitement rather than trepidation, however, requires leaders to do some work. A new study from Leadership IQ, called “AI Readiness And The Road Ahead,” revealed that leaders believe only 10% of their employees are excited by AI, with another 35% cautiously optimistic. While those numbers may seem a bit depressing, there is reason for optimism: When leaders rated their own skills with artificial intelligence, a significant 31% reported having no experience with AI tools, 32% considered themselves to be at a beginner level, and another 10% as struggling novices. In other words, around 73% of leaders have minimal to no experience with AI tools, so increasing their exposure could drastically increase their excitement.<\/p>\n

I recently spoke with Microsoft executive Colette Stallbaumer, General Manager, Future of Work, to discuss how best to get employees comfortable with AI. “One thing that I think people really don’t fully understand yet is with Copilot, it’s not just giving you an answer; it’s your answer,” she told me. Microsoft 365 Copilot integrates the power of large language models into your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, etc., but it’s not designed to replace people. In fact, she notes, “We designed Copilot really to put humans in the center. You’re always in control.”<\/p>\n

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This is a critical point for any company with employees anxious about AI\u2014people are always in control. As Stallbaumer puts it, “One helpful way to think about it is rather than AI replacing your job, think about AI replacing specific tasks. We all have tasks that we don’t love doing, and so think about AI’s application to those things.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps you hate writing FAQ documents, coming up with ten different ways to say ‘no’ to an overbearing customer, or shaving 50 words from your executive summary. Every one of those tasks could be made significantly faster and easier with AI. Imagine that your meetings consistently get off track, and you’ve gotten in the habit of saying, “That’s a great point, but I don’t think we have time to get into it today.” You feel like that phrase is getting a little stale, so you ask Bing Chat for some alternative ways to communicate the same message. In a few seconds, it’s given you options like:<\/p>\n