Microsoft Tech Briefings - Unlocking Next-Generation AI Tools

Yesterday's Microsoft Tech Briefings event was all about AI and the customer experience. Think of it as turning customer service into a science fiction movie, just without the aliens... at least, they didn't RSVP. 👽

The event was led by the dynamic duo, Anniek van der Ven, the Customer Experience mastermind at Microsoft, and Ido Ovadia, the Business Applications guru.

They kicked things off with some stats on customers insights:

85% - desire automation;

82% - anticipate a deeper understanding of their needs from companies;

72% - would switch brands following a negative experience.

While the sample size for these data points wasn't revealed, i tend to agree with the numbers. Unless you are out of internet for the last 6 months, EVERYONE is talking about AI and is capabilities, and how it will change the world. And with that, the expectations skyrocket.

And speaking of AI, the spotlight was on the big elephant in the room, Microsoft 365 Copilot.

This AI superstar did more than flex its muscles; it showed us some jaw-dropping tricks! From being a creative assistant to managing data input and output, from executing commands to offering recommendations, all through natural language - it was a demonstration straight out of a sci-fi flick. And the most exciting part? It's not a future dream, but a present reality, and we're just scratching the surface.

Leaving a list below with all the features presented for each module:

🏷️ Sales -> Recap sales meetings; Craft customer emails

📢 Marketing -> Generate content ideas; Create audience segments; Simply customer insights

👨🏻‍🔧 Service -> Create customer responses; Enhance self-service bots;

🚚 Supply Chain -> Predict disruptions

🛠️ Operations -> Create product descriptions

The real showstopper? Copilot in Viva Sales. Imagine having your personal Jarvis (yes, like Iron Man) living inside your Outlook or Teams. Need to respond to an email with CRM data? It’s on it. Looking for help with an email template? Consider it done. Want to record and summarize a Teams call? Easy peasy. It's like having a personal assistant, minus the coffee runs.

Then things got serious with Microsoft Cloud's "Responsible AI Principles" and "Runs on Trust". It's clear Microsoft's taking the AI reins and isn't planning on unleashing 😈 Skynet 😈 on us anytime soon.

To round up the event, there was a very interesting Q&A session. Here are a few highlights:

Questions	Answers
When is Copilot available for various countries (e.g., the Netherlands, Austria)?	Current release status for specific features and regions will be updated here
Is it possible to integrate the PVA bot on a website?	Yes, once your bot is created and tested, you can publish it to a website. More details here
What kind of technology is used to protect organizations data?	All data used or generated with Azure OpenAI Service is stored encrypted at rest in your organization’s Azure subscription. Training data provided by the customer is only used to fine-tune the customer’s model and is not used by Microsoft to train or improve any Microsoft models
Is integration with Excel ongoing?	Work is in progress. More information here

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So, what's the bottom line, Dorkies? AI isn’t just about making robots do the robot dance. It's about transforming businesses into customer whisperers, making every interaction feel like a personalized high-five.

There you have it, folks! The future of customer experience is here, and it's got AI written all over it. Hold on to your pocket protectors, Dorkies, 'cause it's about to get wild! 🚀

Amazing times we live in, don't you think? 🤩🤩