Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast - EP 408: Igniting Strategy - How Copilot’s announcements change your creative strategy

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

What happens when a company like Microsoft changes the rules of work, seemingly overnight? We have to change the way we play the game. In today's episode of Everyday AI, we're not just breaking down what's new in Microsoft Copilot, but how everything Microsoft announced at Ignite is going to change your biz strategy.  Newsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageJoin the discussion: Ask Jordan and Carolina questions on Microsoft AIUpcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: [e-mail] with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:1. AI and Business Strategy2. Role of AI Agents3. AI and Time Management4. Adoption and Implementation of AI5. AI and Work Culture TransformationTimestamps:00:00 Microsoft Ignite: AI updates reshape work strategies.04:31 Agents enable human-AI collaboration and job reimagination.07:16 Leadership and reimagining business essential with AI.12:46 Embrace AI impacts; start integrating it now.14:49 Stay focused; start small with AI projects.17:12 Listen to WorkLab for insights on AI adoption.20:25 AI encourages internal data transparency and collaboration.24:52 Integrate AI strategies for effective business implementation.Keywords:Microsoft Ignite Conference, AI, Microsoft Copilot, business leaders, generative AI, Everyday AI, Microsoft WorkLab, Creative Strategies, large language models, planning, technology shift, agents, autonomous agents, AI transformation, AI adoption, AI strategy, reimagining jobs, collaboration, productivity, time saving, ROI, AI investment, unstructured data, Microsoft Teams interpreter agent, AI native organizations, AI powered organizations, AI ethics, enterprise AI application, podcast automation, AI advisory.Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info)

This is the Everyday AI Show, the everyday podcast where we simplify AI and bring its power to your fingertips. Listen daily for practical advice to boost your career, business, and everyday life. Meet Firefly AI Assistant, now live and Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative AI studio. Just describe what you want to create and the assistant handles the rest, orchestrating multi-step workflows across Photoshop, Premiere Express, and more in one conversational interface. You direct the outcome. The assistant accelerates execution. Microsoft just kind of rewrote the rules to work with all of their announcements here at the Microsoft Ignite conference.

There were so many updates. And it's been great to be here along talking with very smart people on how AI and everything that was just announced in Microsoft co-pilot is going to probably change the way that we work. And I think importantly, it's imperative for business leaders to re-look at work traditionally pre-AI versus post-AI, right? It's no longer a new world that we're living in. And today we're going to be talking about how co-pilots announcements change your creative strategy. So I'm excited about that. What's going on, y'all? My name is Jordan Wilson, and I'm the host of Everyday AI. This is your daily live stream podcast. and free daily newsletters

helping us all learn and leverage generative AI to grow your company and your career. So if you're joining us live, you probably see we are actually in person still here at Chicago at Microsoft Ignite. So thank you for tuning in. If you're on the podcast, as always,

make sure to check your show notes and go to our website at your everyday AI.com. So if you're here for the daily news, we're still going to have that in the newsletter, but I'm excited to jump straight into our conversation. So before we get started, I'd have to give a quick shout out to our partners at Microsoft WorkLab.

So why should you listen to the Work Lab podcast from Microsoft? Because it's the place to find actionable insights to guide your organization's AI transformation. Tune in to learn how to think more creatively about unlocking the full potential of the technology. That's W-O-R-K-L-A-B, no spaces, available wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to the show. I'm excited to have with me, Carolina Milan Easy, the president and principal analyst at Creative Strategies. So, Carolina, thank you so much for joining the Everyday AI show. Thank you for having me.

All right. So can you tell everyone a little bit about what you guys do at the creative strategies? We are an industry firm, an industry analyst firm. So I've been following tech for more than I want to disclose. and I look at everything that is technology and the way that technology is impacting enterprises and everyday workspace, if you like. And AI, of course, is top of mind to everybody's planning for the year. Yeah, and speaking of planning, I can only imagine how difficult it is for small, medium enterprise organizations to actually plan things. How has, you know, the last, you know,

year or two, at least for companies that you work with, how has planning in general changed since this wave of generative AI in large language models? I think that planning is kind of gone out of the window because technology is moving so fast, AI is moving so fast that you really have to think not necessarily a planning AI, but you're thinking about the job to be done and the problem that you're trying to solve. If you stay focused on that, how quickly AI is changing is only going to mean that you're changing what you're throwing at the problem in a way, but you're still going to get an outcome versus trying to chase the technology per se. So, you know, speaking of Microsoft Ignite, we are here. You know, we just

had the keynote on Tuesday. And it seems like even if you were trying to keep up or even trying to play it a little bit ahead, it seems like now you have to go back to the drawing board with everything that we, you know, heard and saw and we're continuing to get new updates on, you know, Microsoft co-pilot and their suite of products. What is it that stuck out to you that you are like, okay, this is really going to impact strategy as a whole and how businesses should be operating. Agents. I think that, you know, if Balmer was still here at Microsoft, it would be agents, agents, agents. In all seriousness, I do think that agents are bringing AI to life, but more so they're bringing the collaboration between humans and AI to fruition. You know,

We've been focusing for the past couple of years on AI and how AI is impacting jobs. And a lot of times you read the negative things about the job loss. And like everything, when there's a really big technology shift, there are going to be changes. That's not something that is untrue. But what we don't talk about is how AI is actually helping people reimagine their jobs, whether it is a creative job. or a job or not. And with the agents, you really see how that is gonna pan out. So the idea that you now have generative AI really become a team member and doing things

and anticipating your needs is critical. Yeah. Agents, yeah. Agents everywhere. Agents, agents, agents, right? Yeah. So if you are actually tuning in for the first time, we did have Ray Smith from Microsoft on earlier talking about agents, so we'll make sure to put that in the show notes. But, you know, even when it comes to agents and then there's autonomous agents and you can build

your own in co-pilot studio, where does that leave the human, Carolina? Where does that leave the human in all of this? We are still very much in the game. You know, I'm not really concerned about the fact that my skill set, my knowledge, if I'm within a business, the knowledge that I acquired over the years of. working in a company, you know, my emotional intelligence, all the things that we have as a human being are still going to be irrelevant tomorrow. What I need to do is be smart enough to take advantage of AI and the agents that will be their side my side so that I can elevate my

work and I can increase my ROI both from a personal perspective if I'm an entrepreneur or if I'm part of a team in a large organization. How do you go about doing that? I know that's like the billion or trillion dollar question, right? How organizations and enterprises can start taking advantage of agents and taking advantage of all of these seemingly limitless, you know, capabilities that we're seeing out of Microsoft and co-pilot here at the Ignite conference, but how do you go about actually doing that? I think that the technology per se is not going to make

your business better different, right? It's going to take leadership and it's going to take really looking at how you're reimagining your business and taking advantage of AI for that. There are some low-ending fruits that, you know, everybody's talking about time saving and I get a little, you know, as a sole contributor, I'm excited because if I save time, it means that I can go spend time doing something that maybe I like. If I am an employee, Maybe I'm a little worried that if I save time, I either going to get more work given to me or that my employer might think I'm irrelevant.

So I think that what Microsoft has announced yesterday, which is a more inclusive way to look at ROI beyond just the time saving. And so it's looking at processes. Think about having an agent inform you before you go and do a sales call with a customer. So you have an agent that is going to surface all the information about that customer, your previous interaction, what they're buying right now, what their problems are.

So you actually go and close that deal maybe in three months instead of six months. So lead time on closing a deal or a deal. Or if you're a creator, obviously you're in this business, I and too, not at your level. and doing video editing and audio editing is so complicated. What if you have an agent helping you with that, helping you with, you know, at least giving you a first pass of an edited version of some content that you created.

I mean, there are so many ways, but optimization, I think, of processes to me is the really first thing that we're going to see. Yeah, and I love that example that you gave of lead time, right? I think that was one of the examples that Microsoft gave for autonomous agents in one of their first case studies with McKinsey saying that it cut down lead time by 90%. But then we get to, okay, well, what happens then? What happens if you save more time? Right?

In your example, you said, oh, well, I can immediately start bringing in new lines of business. So how should then larger organizations be looking at saved time? Because ultimately, they're just looking at R-O-Y. So where's that balance with more time versus the return on investment of AI? I mean, there's definitely a return of investment that is quantifiable in dollars, for sure. Because I care about people a lot and I talk about people a lot. I also highlight the fact that saving time so that your talent can do what is highly rewarding for them, it means higher retention. It means less training.

You know, acquiring a new employee, especially at a, you know, middle management and upper level, is hard and it's costly. So I think that I know that we're at a time we're talking about employee wellness, people are getting tired of it and we don't care. There is actually data that prove how much more engaged an employee is when they do rewarding work. And that, I think, is what the bare minimum that AI is going to help us do. So it almost seems like that can't be topical, that approach or the methodology of really putting humans first in AI. It has to be very intentional and meaningful for it to pay off maybe. Is that kind of how decision makers should be looking at it? It's not just a checkmark, oh, human first AI or human-led AI.

Like, you have to actually invest in the human to make sure that they can use AI and still feel that meaning? A hundred percent. I think that the humans have to be trained to use AI properly and ethically. That's the first step. And then I think that the other part is not making it about AI versus human, but AI plus human being more important. And this morning at one of the sessions, the VP of the, co-pilot was talking about how technology or innovation does not equal transformation, people do.

So you have as a leader to be, you have to be intentional in really elevating your talent to do what you hire them to do. You know what? It seems like every organization's implementation of AI has come at a different time, right? You had your early adopters who obviously, you know, traditional artificial intelligence has been around for decades, but at least in this new wave of generative AI and large language models, you had your early adopters, you know, maybe two years ago or more. And then you still had those that maybe sat on the fence and or maybe just now, you know,

fully getting themselves ingrained into it here at the end of 2024. What's your best advice to maybe those companies that maybe drug their feet a little bit and now they're just diving into it, how can they maybe start human first? Or is there an advantage to maybe starting now with all of these new innovations that have just been announced? You have to start now because you're already late. And I'm not saying this in a funny way or a headliner way. It's true.

You need to start thinking about AI and how you can use effectively AI within your business because your business is going to be impacted whether you want it or not. And I think that that is true on the consumer side as well, that we as human being will be impacted by AI in everything, the way that, you know, your mortgage application will be evaluated, that the way that, you know, your grades at school will be, you know, decided. So much is going to have an algorithm running behind what we see. So I do think that is really important that at a minimum, you are curious about the opportunity that AI can bring. And the other part, as I said, is starting with the problem that you have and you're trying to solve. Not everything needs an LLM behind. If you're trying to do 2 plus 2, please, just use a calculator.

But I think that if you're looking at where you want to be with your business, how your competition is moving, and start thinking about how you can use. use AI to help you do that. AI is not going to do it for you. AI is going to help you do it more efficiently, better, bigger. For those companies maybe that you're working with or maybe for our listeners out there who are midway in their journey, how would you say, you know, what we just saw announced here at Ignite, how does that change long-term, medium-term business strategies?

because it's, I see two sides of it, right? I see number one, oh my gosh, all of these new, you know, ways that you can spend less time, get more return. But then at the same time, I'm like, oh, my gosh, all these ways you can save more time and get more return. It almost seems like too many good potential solutions to a single problem. So how do business leaders navigate that? You need to stay focus.

At the end of the day, I think is too easy to get carried away and overinvest. when you're not sure what your return is. And so, you know, don't get carried away about what the opportunity is and just look from a business perspective where you can use AI to solve a problem that you have, where you can use AI to streamline a workflow that you have, where you can use AI to maybe think differently

about an approach to go to market, but just be focused and start maybe with a small project. not try and think about your business overall, but go in first on one thing that you're trying to solve, one department that could benefit from it, and then go from there. It's great advice, by the way. I think that there's maybe been almost an attitude change or a stigma kind of shift around using AI. You know, I can even remember myself maybe, you know, earlier on or even maybe, you know, in the first kind of wave of co-pilot announcements,

you know, I remember some business owners saying, oh, we would never use AI for this project or for this department. And now you hear those same type of people saying, oh, we would never not use AI. How has the stigma around AI usage changed? And where do you see that headed, you know, in the near future? I think we need to talk about it more as a positive. And we're getting there.

I love some of the demos that we saw on stage here where it is really about, you kind of would be silly not to take advantage of that particular AI feature. And, you know, I write for part of my business and, you know, I need to give advice. My time is better spent tackling a problem and thinking about the advice that I can give

than not summarizing, you know, all the announcements that happened yesterday on stage. Or AI can do that for me and give me a summary that I can incorporate in the piece that I'm writing where I spend my time

actually focusing on what does it mean to you? That's, yeah, it's funny you say that. You know, I'm using AI to plan for every episode, you know, before, after, you know, at all aspects, right? So I'm curious,

how have you? you even started to use AI in your day to day? I think that's one of the things that, you know, our listeners can probably learn the most from is hearing how smart, successful people are actually getting those gains and getting those positive returns. So where are you using it? I'm using it from a number perspective. When I look at earnings and look at comparison from, you know, announcements year over year, I use it for titles for my podcast. I put an episode title and it's like, well, come up with something, usually funnier because I'm not a funny person. So make it funnier. That's usually what I do. I use it for also planning,

you know, whether it is a meeting or even, you know, from a time perspective, I have 30 minutes in my podcast, you know, help me structure it in a way that at least is the first draft and then I'll take it from there. All right. Let's take a quick break to shout out our partners at the Microsoft Work Lab podcast. So why should you listen to the Work Lab podcast for Microsoft? It explores the questions business leaders are asking. How can they guide their organization's AI adoption journey?

How can AI help them maximize value and create new products and business models? How should they help their team reskill for this new era of work? Why is it important to be completely transparent? about when and how you use AI. Find the answers on WorkLab. That's W-O-R-K-L-A-B, no spaces available wherever you get your podcast. Yeah, I think that's an important, an important gem that you just drop there. And I think that's maybe good for, you know, individuals, teams, and organizations. But finding those areas that maybe you're not as strong in, right? And leaning into artificial intelligence for those areas. How can business

leaders start implementing that in their strategy, right? Because large language models, when used correctly, can do just about anything, right? Especially as they get more and more robust. So how can business leaders even take that almost inventory of their current team, their current department, and start finding those areas on how to use it? And I think that the beauty of AI, whether you're going to end up using it or not, is that it's forcing a lot of organization to look at the data that they have available internally. A lot of the data that we have is, you know, it's a case of right hand not knowing what the left end is doing,

not because from a technology perspective, you cannot be more transparent, but because as a human, you know, the marketing department might not be sharing with the HR department or whatever the case might be. We're creating silos within organizations make it harder for us to take advantage of the data and the goodness that we have inside.

And I think that as we prep for AI is going to give us an opportunity to clean up house a little bit. The left hand and the right hand not knowing what each other are doing, that's great. You know, one thing that I'm always talking about is how companies can start to use that maybe left hand, things like unstructured data, right? Meetings, emails, different drafts of different types of documents and how they can actually start using. that and not let it be like wasted knowledge. Is that something that you see that organizations should be focusing on, that kind of left-hand right-hand approach? Absolutely. I think that there is a lot of data and knowledge that goes wasted just because we don't have the time or because we're not

aware or certain things. And so being, you know, just think about the power of getting to a meeting and being more informed or the power of not getting to that meeting. And so, still not feel that you're missing out. I think it really opens out the opportunity. There was the interpreter new feature that Microsoft launched here about, you know, me and you having a conversation, I'm Italian, I could do all of this in Italian, and having a live interpreter, if we were doing it over teams, speak with my voice in English. And I know that people look at that and think, oh, my God, you know, nobody's going to use that. And I said, well, nobody has up until now, but you're not aware of the cognitive load that you're putting on the person whose first language is not the

one spoken and at the same time of the listener who is trying to maybe figure out the accent that is slightly off like you're doing with me. No, not at all. I'm just joking, but hopefully I'm just joking. But you know, there's just because we did we've done it for a certain period of time in a certain way it doesn't mean that there's no opportunity to do it better. And again, we go and back to the human and taking some of that load of a human brain. Yeah, and that's such a good point because I think, you know, AI does sometimes get a bad

rap as being less human. But in that example, you know, using, you know, in this case, Microsoft co-pilot and their team's interpreter agent can actually help you be a better human and be more empathetic. So there's room for that. Exactly right. Because I'm able to express myself in a language that is my language, which is usually richer than when you use in somebody else's language. Yeah.

And one thing that I talk about a little bit on the show is the process of unlearning. And sometimes we've gone decades building up certain manual knowledge work skills that, you know, something like an agent now in co-pilot might do better. What advice do you have for people out there, you know, as we shift from, you know, kind of AI empowered to AI native or AI first organizations, how can they start to re-look at those processes that maybe used to be great a decade or two ago? Well, the first thing I would say is that if you don't do it,

the new generation of workers that you're gonna bring in are gonna do it for you. And something else that was said on stage, don't think that if you are saying that your employees cannot use AI, that nobody's using it. They are and they're doing it behind your back. And so that is actually more dangerous because when you have no control on the data

that your talent might be using to run AI models, right? So be open to the idea of trying, put guard rails and see where it goes. Carolina, we've talked a lot about so many different things from, you know, how to properly incorporate AI into your strategy, the concept of measuring time and in ROI data. I mean, we've covered so many different things.

But maybe as we wrap up, what is your most important takeaway, you know, as business leaders try to take advantage of all of these new kind of announcements and features from, you know, Microsoft co-pilot and what we've heard here at Ignite. But yeah, what's your takeaway message for, you know, leaders taking advantage of what we have now and implementing it into their business strategy? I think it's be pragmatic. Really start with the problem and hand, what you're trying to do. Start small and go big. But don't just close off your mind to the opportunity and the possibility of change. So much great advice in today's conversation. And Carolina, thank you so much for sharing your time with us and helping us all make sense of all of this new AI power that we now have at our fingertips.

We very much appreciate your time. Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure. All right. That was a lot, everyone. So maybe you were out walking your dog or on the treadmill and you're like, I should have wrote that down. Don't worry, we've got that for you. So make sure you go to your everyday AI.com.

Sign up for that free daily newsletter. we're going to be recapping all of that great advice that Carolina just gave to us in the newsletter. So thank you for tuning in. And we hope to see you back tomorrow. And every day for more everyday AI. Thanks y'all. Meet Firefly AI Assistant. Now live in Adobe Firefly, the Allman One Creative AI Studio.

Just describe what you want to create in your own words and the assistant handles the rest. Orchestrating multi-step workflows across Adobe Creative Cloud apps, including Photoshop, Premiere Express, and more in one conversational interface. You direct the outcome while the assistant accelerates execution. Stay in control with the ability to step in and refine at any time. See it today at firefly.adobie.com. And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us.

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