Office workers enjoyed a week off. Microsoft and Google each released generative AI tools two days apart, making it far simpler to attend meetings, write letters, plan travel, and finish up tasks. The goods transform the brilliance of ChatGPT, Dall-E, Midjourney, and Bard into straightforward, practical uses. And the workplace is where these plainly clear uses are found. Maybe it’s not a coincidence.
After the Generative AI phenomenon has been around for about a year, it is becoming clear that the technology is most effective in the corporate first, with potential for wider consumer adoption to follow. The successful introduction of ChatGPT, which attracted 100 million users in only two months, gave the impression that AI chatbots and the technologies that go with them might be quickly and widely adopted. However, ChatGPT was primarily intended as a demo for businesses wishing to build on the technology. They are now shipping as consumer chatbot usage declines.
Microsoft in particular unveiled an outstanding collection of generative AI capabilities for businesses that, if they perform as advertised, may improve the workday. Copilot, a “everyday AI companion” from the firm, will be extensively featured on Windows 11, Bing, Edge, and Microsoft 365. Once it gets access to meeting minutes, emails, and documents, it starts to sing extremely well.
I listened as Microsoft unveiled technologies that streamline and automate some of the worst aspects of office life on Thursday at a release event in New York. A text generator that can read lengthy Word documents and create blog articles emphasising the most important aspects was demonstrated by the company. It displayed another function that lets you ask Copilot to compile a large number of unread emails from an email-obsessed colleague. The technology can also read meeting transcripts that you miss and highlight the most important passages, or it can let you search through all of the discussions. Even small changes like asking Copilot to make a banner image (and we all know how terrifying that is to do) look pretty helpful.
Because their next promotion, raise, or even their job itself may depend on their ability to use these tools effectively, people will have a genuine motivation to do so at work. It is worthwhile to experiment with chatbots and image generators until you get it right when the risks are high. Consumers may find technology to be a little intimidating or not worth the effort. Prompting is something you performed on MS-DOS, a techie told me this week. Since then, we’ve improved user interfaces.
But as we become accustomed to these technologies at work, their use in our personal life is sure to increase. We might use AI to arrange everything from a meeting to a vacation. Or from using a text generator to create a blog article to really creating a bedtime story. The words of our family may potentially be ingested into lengthy texts and used to create chatbots.
Additionally, generative AI experiences will become more commonplace in the goods we use every day, simplifying the transition. For instance, Google is integrating Bard with Gmail. Additionally, Microsoft is integrating its AI Copilot into Windows, making it difficult to ignore. According to Yusuf Mehdi, chief marketing officer for Microsoft Consumer, “having it in Windows and having it naturally appear when you need it will trigger average people to try it and use it a lot more than they do today.”
Microsoft disputes claims that generative AI hasn’t helped Bing gain an advantage over its rival and is upbeat about how Bing compares to Google. Mehdi stated, “We have been increasing our share with Bing.” They are internal numbers, and I’m working on getting a third, impartial third party, which we will have soon.
The product announcements this week should allay short-term worries about generative AI displacing human labor. These devices should lessen the amount of pointless work that takes up a regular workday because they are assistive and almost allow you to be in two places at once. However, it won’t send humans out to pasture. They might produce some uniformity in blog articles and business design, which a little personal touch might help ease. And it might even help us handle our hard workdays a little better.