Microsoft Ignite 2024 - the rise of the machine...

“One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa.

An upright ape, living in dust, with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.”

Ex Machina, Alex Garland - 2015

…The seminal line from Ex Machina was top of mind when attending Microsoft Ignite in Chicago last week. An event designed to educate, empower and inspire the Microsoft partner ecosystem to in turn, help our clients across the planet to deliver positive, impactful, purposeful outcomes for society (health/sustainability), for colleagues (work/life balance) and for business (greater profitability through productivity).

Some difficult bed fellows to please in concert, for ease going forward, I will simply define these dimensions as “Leadership’s sustainability trilemma”.

If you want your business to be relevant and indeed, to exist, in ten years’ time, you have to be acutely aware of everything that is coming downstream, to ensure you are effectively planning to maximise the opportunity AI presents, whilst reminding ourselves that we employ humans and must be empathetic when adopting innovation at such phenomenal pace as the evolution of AI (revolution) when considering how far we have come in just twelve months since Copilot was generally available.

Before I move on to the impactful technology that was demonstrated as ‘being available, today’, I admit I am also re-reading “Humans, A brief history of how we F*cked it all up” – charting humanities spiral into self-created oblivion, a phenomenal book by Tim Phillips which helps to contextualise the World’s challenges and how we humans are often our own worst enemy, acting as a catalyst for negative, rather than positive impact.

Obviously, that shizzle won’t happen with AI…

As you can imagine, I walked into Microsoft’s event with my ever-positive outlook and growth mindset. Clinging to the hope that humanity will prevail and in many ways my hopes were achieved, with most fears alleviated (if with a pervasive niggle of the potential socio-economic impact innovation could create an even more polarised society of “have’s and have not’s”).

When it comes to those who can afford a personalised AI Agent to undertake their tasks (think of the human’s in Wall-E – my immediate thought) versus those who still have to manually craft their Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and even have the previously ‘exclusive knowledge’ to build their own v-lookups and power BI analytics – you know who you are, you crazy, ‘old school’ kids - those days are over my friends, knowledge as well as process augmentation have been democratised and automated, access to innovation for all, is available now - just ask Copilot!

For those who can access AI and in particular, Microsoft Copilot, the options for productivity gains are beyond comprehension, just read on for some of the highlights. With Microsoft regularly citing themselves as “Customer zero” and “drinking their own champagne” with a workforce of 60,000, sharing stats on gains in performance / outcomes, with a considerable reduction in workforce / headcount saving $500m in their services arm alone.

The Review:

The Microsoft Ignite 2024 event, November 18-22, 2024, in Chicago, showcased significant advancements in AI, accessibility, productivity tools, security, collaboration and advances in both remote working as well as cloud computing.

The event demonstrated accessible innovation, encouraging early technology adoption to have a chance to keep up with the phenomenal pace of change in the industry.

If you want to positively impact Leadership’s sustainability trilemma the key opportunities and business impacts you might want to consider are:

1. Building an ‘Agentic World’ - AI 'Agents' for Autonomous Task Management

Microsoft unveiled Agentic AI; AI "agents" designed to perform tasks autonomously across various business functions. These agents can handle processes such as customer returns and invoice management, aiming to enhance operational efficiency and reduce manual workloads. Whilst this sounds innocent and ‘low key’ the pervasive and impactful nature of Agents was a continuous theme across the Microsoft presentation – ‘Personalised Agents for every worker’ was a recurring theme to prepare us all for what is to come… Automation.

Sources: Associated Press or Microsoft Ignite 2024 Book of News

2. The Universal Interface – Accessibility for all

During the Keynote, Satya Nadella discussed AI’s capability as a Universal interface: Allowing AI to accept and process various types of input, including speech, images, and videos. Enabling more natural and intuitive interactions between humans and AI systems. Courtesy of the speed of processing (which was also touched upon in Scaling Laws) he showed first-hand how you could query data live, leveraging AI, stepping through reasoning and planning, as well as memory and context, to summarize key trends from the source information being discussed and presented. The demo combined visual and audio inputs thus generating human accessible outputs – visualisations with trend data. This was, indeed, impressive!

3. Copilot Actions to Automate Repetitive Tasks – Driving productivity

The introduction of Copilot Actions enables Microsoft 365 Copilot users to automate routine tasks, including summarising meeting actions and generating reports from simple prompt engineering (and is indeed a phenomenal productivity boost by minimising manual intervention in repetitive processes).

I am sure, if you use Copilot today, you will have loved the summing up from meetings or documents for example. This takes simple features to the next level, helping you to aggregate data and operational insights from team members effectively (for you). It also lays the foundations for the agentic experience mentioned above e.g. where my agent asks your agent for an update, so we both stay ‘on task’ but can share insights on productivity regarding goals / projects etc. automatically.

4. Data Governance leveraging Purview - Reduce ‘over sharing’ accelerate trust

On the pre-day I chose the most relevant session for our company, Prosperity 24/7 , given our focus on Financial Services, Legal and Public Sector Industries.  Enhanced AI data governance to enable the journey from pilot to rapid deployment at scale, through to operate - leveraging Microsoft Purview to mitigate ‘over sharing / data leakage (to AI apps) and non-compliant usage’ whilst subsequently facilitating continuous improvement of data security practices. So incredibly useful if you, like us, are ISO 27001 compliant.

I would recommend checking out AI Hub and the Purview Audit tools (in preview) to discover and secure all AI activity in Copilot and other generative AI apps in your enterprise.

5. Copilot Pages - Collaborate at speed

Copilot Pages are a dynamic persistent canvas - think ‘workspace / whiteboard’ designed for multiparty / colleague and AI collaboration.

Pages takes AI-generated content and makes it durable/persistent, so you can edit it, add to it, and share it with others. If this sounds ‘light weight’ that is me doing it a disservice. If you have 90 seconds to spare, I recommend you watch this to understand how transformative it is – think ‘pitch documents’ if it helps to contextualise in a business scenario: Copilot Pages demo.

6. Windows 365 Link - A Cloud-Based Mini-PC and ‘Azure local’ the next generation of Datacentre hardware

Whilst it has been a long time since I was excited by a small form factor terminal, Satya Nadella introduced the Windows 365 Link, a compact, cloud-based mini-PC tailored for business use.

If you have to return to work, rather than work from home, you may as well do it in style and at phenomenal performance levels!

This small device facilitates seamless yet secure access to Windows 365 services, supporting dual 4K monitors whilst offering enhanced security features. It is designed to support flexible work environments, enabling employees to connect to their workspaces from various locations.

This ‘linked’ very much to announcements regarding the development of the proprietary Data Centre Infrastructure Chip set.

To enhance AI processing capabilities and data security, Microsoft launched two proprietary data centre infrastructure chips. These chips aim to optimise data processing speeds and reduce reliance on third-party processors, potentially leading to cost savings and improved performance in AI applications.

If you were at the expo (I was) there was detailed information regarding the impact to power saving and new cooling technologies, as well as ways to leverage Fabric and the Sustainability tools available from Microsoft to track your own carbon footprint - helpful!

New ‘Azure Local’ form factors for clients to deploy to their own datacentres were also shared which came in three ‘flavours’: Small & rugged, Connected and Disconnected (honestly) – you can read more here.

Conclusions for your business:

From a technology standpoint these developments underscore Microsoft's commitment to integrating advanced AI capabilities into its product offerings, aiming to drive operational efficiency, enhance security, and support flexible work environments. Therefore, meeting most of my previously mentioned Leadership’s sustainability trilemma.

I have only touched on some of the new feature highlights. If you have a lot more time, I would strongly encourage you to set an hour (or more) aside to review the Ignite 2024 Book of News.

From a leadership perspective and indeed, Satya’s and therefore Microsoft’s challenge, I am mindful of the trilemma and the explicit dimension of society. To truly have ‘democratised access for all’ then cost, or at least a ‘freemium’ model has to be a consideration.

Pricing from Microsoft is ultimately regional, so hopefully developing nations can benefit across all dimensions mentioned, we just have to be acutely mindful that an unintended consequence is easily foreseeable, namely the potential for mass unemployment across all tiers of society for knowledge workers, no matter their span of capability or indeed, seniority. Likewise, geography is no barrier either - through the rapid development of agents, simply automating us into a reality, predicted by Alex Garland in Ex Machina “One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape, living in dust, with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.”

This sounds dramatic, I know, and my concerns are by no means new or unique, it is just that my risk level for society is ‘somewhat elevated’ due to the rapid advancement in Copilot in just twelve months.

We have to remind ourselves that ‘scaffolding and frameworks’ exist to protect humanity, not least the basic AI principle – Proportionality and Do No Harm – as laid down in the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence | UNESCO

I personally take comfort by reminding myself that Microsoft are a purposeful company, striving to do good and, that they can be trusted.

Considering the innovation demonstrated at Microsoft Ignite, Copilot continues to get my absolute support, and that of our colleagues in Prosperity 24/7.

We will do all that we can to ensure that our colleagues, clients, and communities are sustainable, economically, socially and purposefully.

If you are not using AI today, I would urge you to explore Copilot as soon as you can, as I really fear that your company may be at risk of not keeping pace with those who are.

The acceleration and adoption curve of those who are using AI, learning continuously how best to benefit, driving productivity up, must naturally be leaving others in their wake…

I hate to say it, but if you don’t want to be a dinosaur e.g. extinct, we all need to take personal responsibility to understand the implications, consider the human impact, yet embrace the automation to improve not only our businesses but also the positive contribution in GVA we can deliver for our respective nation states. You would hope that through eliminating waste and driving up productivity, this will lead to improved profitability and thus the natural tax revenues which will follow, will help to feed, educate and nurture our respective societies accordingly.

Personally, I believe I am a ‘conscious capitalist’ and not the ‘inconsiderate capitalist’ that you need to be to exploit AI to its core. I am certain there will be company owners with less of a moral compass, who will, by leveraging AI Agents to autonomise their entire workforce, drive up profitability for the minority and not worry about the wider consequences for society.

Ultimately, I am a human, a social being, and whilst I will encourage the pragmatic use of innovation and indeed AI, I will fight for humanity and society, as otherwise, we are all, seriously up a creek and as yet, I have not seen a paddle, automated (on second thought, I have, it’s called an engine, so I’ll take that back – and that is how you ought to think of Copilot, an engine that will power your organisations productivity in turbulent waters).

Finally, and on a lighter note, Ignite has inspired me to watch ‘The Terminator’.  A film I have not seen since 1984, set in Los Angeles, all the way out in the distant future - 2029 - highlighting a post-nuclear dystopian future where the machines have taken over.

Thankfully, as we all know, that will never happen…

I would like to thank the team from Microsoft who were involved in getting Microsoft Ignite back on the annual agenda as an in person event. It is essential to have a forum where you can be fully immersed in innovation yet encourage a permissible culture where you are able to speak truth to power, should the need arise. I look forward to San Francisco in 2025.

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