24 Comments
User's avatar
Raveen's avatar

Interesting prospect. Thanks for sharing.

Expand full comment
Brian Curtiss's avatar

I don’t need or care about any of the “wonderful” things described here. Like anyone should be getting 100 emails while on a conference call? Ridiculous. Sounds like this is all to combat bad corporate structuring and trying to encourage bad work habits like having a job where you can’t possibly read all your emails. Screw that. None of this excites me in the least.

Expand full comment
P. Morse's avatar

I feel sorry for corporates stuck with Office 365. Arguably, it may have "steadily improved" over the years but it is still bloated, buggy, and wastes your time. Google Docs transcends it in almost every way.

Expand full comment
ProfessorTom's avatar

This is another one of those technologies that demos nicely but getting it right often enough is devilishly ticklish. Even if you get 98% accuracy, it’s that remaining 2% that will prevent visions like the one you mentioned here to become true.

It’s not wrong to strive, but we should be clear about what is and isn’t capable.

Expand full comment
Martin Prior's avatar

Totally right. Demos are always done on perfect data.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how good it is.

Expand full comment
Chris Anselmo's avatar

This was quite insightful. Given my disdain for making PowerPoint presentations, I am really excited to see how Copilot can get the ball rolling!

Expand full comment
Martin Prior's avatar

Totally!

Expand full comment
Livio Marcheschi's avatar

Thanks for the update, Martin!

Expand full comment
Mark Dykeman's avatar

Very interesting!

Expand full comment
Gary Sharpe's avatar

Thanks for this heads up. Interesting, exciting possibilities, but also somewhat frightening!

Expand full comment
Roland Millward's avatar

RIP humanity. Welcome dumbmanity.

Expand full comment
Martin Prior's avatar

Maybe. It's certainly going to be interesting. At the moment, its obvious what has been created using AI. In future...who knows.

Expand full comment
Roland Millward's avatar

Sadly people are being dumbed down. Less thinking, less reasoning for themselves. It creates a community of people who lack reasoning and it is showing already with the Internet. Now the darn thing can do all the work it will get worse!

Expand full comment
Connecting The Dots's avatar

Correct Roland.

We never ever see it coming. We drool over the new shiny ease and efficiency, the freeing up of time to do more...more what...there will be nothing "more" for us to do, but sit and be a useless eaters. Co-pilot and Co-pilot Pro and Co-pilot XT will be doing it and they'll only need so many coders, for the time being...that will change also.

No one ever looks back and recognizes the shackles, all those shiny new conveniences and easing's put on us. There was a time when virtually everyone knew how to grow food, to feed themselves and their families or hunt, for the same reasons. They'd build their own shelters and manually navigate their lives, themselves or in groups. It equated to that thing called freedom. You were beholding to no one, for the basics.

With each trade off, we forged the links, of our own enslavement. If you don't think so...look around you and ask "who do I know (including myself) that could feed themselves/family if all the food were to disappear from shelves and freezers?".

But wait, MS Co-pilot to the rescue...."Co-pilot what did I miss last night..."All food was confiscated and destroyed by the regime and there are marauding hoards outside your door....do you want to go through your emails now?"

So much saved time, so many things to do.

Martin I mean no offense to you. It is actually a very good post and if I was inclined to see this and other AI tech as useful, I'd be excited.

I and those like me are the minority though. This and other programs/platforms are the springboards for the future "Skynets" - benign or malevolent. So my push back has more to do with a distrust of all corporate control and less to do with the progress - although to my mind those are one in the same.

Expand full comment
Martin Prior's avatar

Ha, no offense taken.

There's been quite a lot of doom around AI so this was a rebalancing piece a little to try and see some of the positives.

I think there will be people who just churn out what the latest AI tells them to. But, my optimistic hat sees the potential to take away the hours of time it takes to scan through endless messages, find that darn document John from finance sent me or keep on top of all those teams messages.

The productivity gains are massive.

I just hope we use the time it creates creatively. Thats the hope.

Expand full comment
Roland Millward's avatar

I find documents easily with search on Mac email so I can’t see any need for AI to do that.

Expand full comment
Connecting The Dots's avatar

I have no doubt that this will hit the corporations, much as Azure and many other cloud aps have. I work for a major defense contractor and just told a co-worker (he is also a refusenik) we will see this hit the board rooms and front lines within a year - shared your post for context.

My 4 cents if I may (inflation adjusted). What I've noticed in my professional world, is a self perpetuating process of more complex programs and business theories and models, to simplify our work lives, processes and up productivity. I see more damn graphs and pie charts, literally about graphs and pie charts, and wonder who the hell is watching the digital dials and gauges of the operation? Additionally, for every new process, program or theory implemented, you UP the number of coordination emails, meeting, tiger teams, new process and operating documents/manual and training for such...the time saving "thing" becomes a time sump - all of it's own making.

On top of that you see a rising tide of mediocrity, in the workforce and middle management pool. In part because the reliance on these lean and agile techniques and programs is total capture. The upper managers/boardrooms see THIS as the product now. The middle manager struggle to make the graphs and pie charts showing the amounts of time and money saved, for the gatekeepers - and in the process lose touch with what the frontline workers are doing. The workers for their part, clearly see all this and watch the quality of the products, consistently being chipped away at, because the new "newness" says numbers count over quality - but not out loud. So, while a few hold outs refuse to flush the standards and work themselves silly, the rest get the message (if the managers don't care about the quality of this product, then why should I?)

Well that was cleansing - thanks Martin!! I didn't intend to do that therapy session in the open, but now I can get to my emails and pie charts, without the ulcer flaring up.

Expand full comment
Martin Prior's avatar

Great comment!

Pie charts are banned in my team - just because a bar chart always is clearer. One for another day maybe!

But I agree, my hope is that we can stop the endless merry go round of management churning emails, producing reports to show how progress and jumping on calls to prove they are doing something.

Maybe.

Expand full comment
Roland Millward's avatar

A very good and well thought out comment.

Expand full comment
Connecting The Dots's avatar

Thank you Roland.

My apologies to you and Martin for the typos. I have an "s" key, that I think has long covid and only works when I give it the Buddha finger.

Expand full comment
Roland Millward's avatar

From one human to another, I accept typos for what they are.

Expand full comment