EP 408: Igniting Strategy - How Copilot’s announcements change your creative strategy

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.

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. Copilot is going to probably change the way that we work. And I think importantly, it's imperative for business leaders to relook 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 Copilot's 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 Livestream podcast and free daily newsletter 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 everydayai. Com. So if you're here for the daily news, we're still gonna have that in the newsletter, but I'm excited to jump straight into our conversation. So before we get started, have to give a quick shout out to our partners at Microsoft Worklab. So why should you listen to the Worklab podcast from Microsoft? Because it's the place to find actionable insights to guide your organization's AI transformation. Tune in to Lear 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 Ezzy, 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 and 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're, that you work with? How has planning in general changed since this wave of generative AI and large language models?

I think that planning is kind of gone out the window because technology is moving so fast. AI is moving so, 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 plan 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 Copilot and their suite of products. What is it that stuck out to you that you were 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 Ballmer 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 bring in 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 is 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 remanagin their jobs, whether it is a creative jobs or job or not. And with the agents, you really see how that is going to 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, if you are actually tuning in for the first time. We did have Race 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 Copilot 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, 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 there side by side so that I can elevate my, 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 Copilot 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 hanging fruits that, you know, everybody's talking about time saving and I get a little, you know, as a, as a SOL 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 is looking at processes. Think about having an agent inform you before you go and do a sales call with the 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 that 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 am 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 at least giving you a first pass of an edited version of some content that you created? 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%. Right. 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, you know, new lines of business. So how should then larger organizations be looking at saved time? Because ultimately they're just looking at roi. So where's that balance with more time versus the return on investment of AI?

I mean, there's definitely a return on 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. Acquiring a new employee, especially at a 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 check mark. 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 100%.

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 Copilot was talking about how technology or innovation does not equal transformation. People do. Right. 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 are 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, you know, in a funny way or a headliner way. It is true. You need to start thinking about AI and how you can use effectively I 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 evalu, the way that your grades at school will be 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 two plus two, 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 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 you know, 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. So how do business leaders navigate that?

You need to stay focused at the end of the day? I think it's too easy to get carried away and over invest when you're not sure what your return is. And so don't get carried away by 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, 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 to change or a stigma kind of shift around using AI. You know, I can even remember myself maybe, you know, early, earlier on, or even maybe, you know, in the first kind of wave of copilot announcements, you know, I could, 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, you know, a 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 all the announcements that happened yesterday on stage. 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, it's funny you say that, you know, I'm. 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 even started to use AI in your Day to day. I think that's one of the things that, you know, our, 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 numbers perspective. When I look at earnings and look at comparison from, you know, announcements year over year, I use it for titles for my, my podcast, you know, I put an episode title and it's like, we'll come up with something usually funnier because I'm not a funny person. So make it funnier. Yeah, that's usually what I do. I, 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 a 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 Worklab podcast. So why should you listen to the Worklab podcast from 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 podcasts. Yeah, I think that's an important, an important gem that you just dropped 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 hand 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 creating silos within organizations that 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. 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 goes wasted just because we don't have the time or because we're not aware of 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 still not feel that you're missing out. I think it really opens up 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'd done it for a certain period of time in a certain way doesn't mean that there's no opportunity to do it better. And again, we're going back to the human and taking some of that load off a human brain.

Yeah, and that's such a good point because I think, you know, AI does sometimes get a bad rap as, as being less human. But in that example, you know, using, you know, in this case, Microsoft copilot 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, I'm able to express myself in a language that is my language, which is usually a richer that when you use somebody else's language.

Yeah. And one thing that I talk about a little bit on this show is the process of unlearning and sometimes we've gone decades building up certain manual knowledge work skills that something like an agent now in Copilot might do better. What advice do you have for people out there as we shift from kind of AI empowered to AI Native or AI first organizations? How can they start to relook 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 going to bring in are going to 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 then 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 guardrails and see where it goes.

Carolina, we've talked about 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 Microsoft Copilot and what we've heard here at Ignite. But yeah, what's your takeaway message for 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 at 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, so much great advice in today's conversation. 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 everydayai.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.

And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating. It helps keep us going for a little more AI magic. Visit your everydayai.com and sign up to our daily newsletter so you don't get left behind. Go break some barriers and we'll see you next time.