How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Business

This week, we hosted over 100 customers at our new Campus, One Microsoft Place. This event was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fundamentally changing the way business operates.

I was delighted to chair this session as it presented some fascinating insights and impressive demonstrations on the impact that AI is making.

When we talk about AI, we’re talking about amplifying human ingenuity; using technology to make people and processes more efficient.  Microsoft’s approach to AI is focused on leading innovation, building powerful platforms that make innovation faster and more accessible, and developing a trusted approach so that AI is developed and deployed in a responsible manner.

When businesses leverage our AI capabilities, they’re focused on:

1. Reasoning – the ability to add logic to data to produce actionable insights;
2. Understanding – helping people interpret their ambient environment through text or speech or image recognition; and
3. Interaction – with our environment, for example, using a chatbot to communicate with a customer.

How AI can help you with your customers

The importance of chatbots shouldn’t be underestimated. Microsoft’s research has revealed that by 2025, 95% of customer interactions will involve a ‘Bot.’ Today, when you phone a call-centre or start interacting with an agent or website, it’s probably a Bot that you are chatting with rather than a real person. The intelligence powering this Bot is so smart that when things get complicated, you’ll be seamlessly handed over to a real person in the background and you won’t even notice. This notion of cooperation between person and machine is echoed by Garry Kasparov, the renowned Chess Grandmaster, who is firmly of the opinion that the best chess player in the world today isn’t a person or a computer, but rather the combination of the two.

However, smart technology isn’t the only thing on which we should focus. You can have the best AI-infused technology on the planet, but if the business processes that you use don’t adapt to smarter customer interaction models, then the technology is essentially useless.

Now is the time to understand the benefits that AI technology can bring and consider how your business can utilise them.

Another highlight of the day: We showcased our new Microsoft Technology Centre where customers can come in for strategy briefings, workshops, architecture sessions, and technology deep-dives. Just the place to learn more about what AI can do for you.

Kieran McCorry, National Technology Officer, Microsoft Ireland