Two things happened when ChatGPT rose to its current popularity: users wanted to use it for almost everything and organizations rushed to create data security policies that would stop employees from doing just that. Employers were petrified that sensitive data would find its way into the public sphere and banned the use of OpenAI on all company devices. When on July 18th, at the Microsoft Inspire partner event, the Windows maker announced pricing for its AI-infused Copilot for Microsoft 365, ChatGPT’s greatest miss turned out to be Microsoft’s win. Microsoft also announced the launch of Bing Chat Enterprise, a privacy-focused version of the AI chatbot with greater security and peace of mind for handling sensitive business data.
Priced at $30 per month per user for business accounts, Copilot is following the textbook strategy every big tech innovation follows: start with the workplace. Companies first, consumers second. Why the workplace? New technology is always expensive. When Steve Jobs launched the first personal computer, it was almost $13,000 in today’s terms. No one wants to place that much money on a new technology that hasn’t been tested…except…the workplace. And once you use it at the workplace, you see the value of the technology outside the workplace too. Happened with the personal computer and happened with Blackberry. Last year, Meta also tried the same strategy with its VR glasses collab with Microsoft. With rise in popularity of the new tech and time, production gets cheaper, the market exists and when they finally launch for the non-enterprise customers (at hopefully cheaper process), sale happens.
Imagine Copilot sitting in all your office applications – excel sheets, documents, presentations – think of it and it’s there. Per the many launch articles, this GPT-4-powered suite of tools lets you ask PowerPoint to create a presentation based on a Word document, generate a proposal from spreadsheet data or summarize emails and draft responses in Outlook — all by typing simple commands. This isn’t assistance you’d want to give up once you step outside the workplace and into home. As a ChatGPT user, I can tell you right now that once I start using Copilot at work, I will need it for everything I do. For starters, I’d like it to draft my blogs, shoot a complaint email to the transportation department and create a fancy sales pitch presentation for investors to invest in my side hustle. Switching from Copilot that will (hopefully) in future have secure access to my work data to ChatGPT that has no access to my personal inbox (I am not risking that!) isn’t going to be easy.
As Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s Chief Communications Officer, wrote in an announcement: “By grounding answers in business data like your documents, emails, calendar, chats, meetings and contacts, and combining them with your working context — the meeting you’re in now, the emails you’ve exchanged on a topic, the chats you had last week — Copilot delivers richer, more relevant and more actionable responses to your questions.”
The price tag may look like a deterrent but given we have no other pricing to go by, it has set a benchmark. Smart move, Microsoft! I have a strong feeling that most organizations would rather have a generative AI assistant at work than not. The question is – will it be Microsoft’s new offering? Even through Office is 40 years old, it is still churning out a profit of 14% so I wouldn’t be surprised if the first smart AI tool we get at work is the one that works with the tools we use most often i.e. Microsoft’s Office. So, if you ever wished for an executive assistant but were denied one, now is the time to start lobbying for Copilot and pick up a stock or two of MSFT (NOT investment advice).
Even if your workplace doesn’t opt in now, it is (high) time to get familiar with the world of GenerativeAI and how to leverage it in everyday life including the workplace. I just used it to help me create a farewell poem for my colleague and I know that I have only just scratched the surface of what it can help me do.
P.S.: Between Shopify’s Meeting Cost Calculator and Microsoft’s Copilot, July has been quite the month. I can’t wait to see what August brings.
P.P.S: I promise to not (yet) use GenerativeAI to help me write a blog. Am I being stupid? Or just foolishly sentimental about the art of writing? Let me know in the comments below?
The HR Business Partner Story 