In the not so far off future you’ll be able to ask a virtual assistant to transcribe meeting notes during a work call, summarize long email threads, quickly draft suggested replies, and even quickly create a specific chart in Excel.
And that’s just on Microsoft 365 platforms.
Over the past week, a rapidly evolving artificial intelligence landscape seemed to leap ahead yet again. Microsoft and Google each unveiled new AI-powered features for their signature productivity tools and OpenAI introduced its next-generation version of the technology that underpins its viral chatbot tool, ChatGPT.
OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google are at the forefront of this trend, but they are certainly not alone. Large names such as IBM and Amazon are working on similar technologies. A long list of startups are also developing AI writing assistants and image generators.
AI can make you more productive and eliminate grunt work. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put it during a presentation in March, “We believe this next generation of AI will unlock a new wave of productivity growth: powerful copilots designed to remove the drudgery from our daily tasks and jobs, freeing us to rediscover the joy of creation.”
Microsoft’s announcement comes a month after it brought similar AI-powered features to Bing amid a renewed arms race in the tech industry to develop and deploy AI tools that can change how people work, shop, and create. Earlier that week, rival Google announced it is also bringing AI to its productivity tools including Gmail, Sheets, and Docs.
But the sheer number of new options hitting the market is both dizzying and, as with so much else in the tech industry over the past decade, raises questions of whether they will live up to the hype or cause unintended consequences.
Even the promise of greater productivity is unclear. The rise of AI-generated emails, for example, might boost productivity for the sender but decrease it for recipients flooded with longer-than-necessary computer-generated messages. And of course, just because everyone has the option to use a chatbot to communicate with colleagues doesn’t mean all will chose to do so.
The recent surge in interest in new AI applications in 2023 has been nothing short of extraordinary. From ChatGPT to AI Image software that can take an ordinary photo of you and turn it into LinkedIn worthy headshots or make it look like Pope Francis is wearing a giant white puffer jacket (you’ll have to Google that one!) it’s become increasingly obvious that the technology and business worlds as we know it are rapidly evolving. Aside from being fun to play with these brand-new technologies could create many efficiencies in the workplace but as I mention above, could also have unintended consequences. As a marketing professional that takes pride in being a creator of original content, I have concerns, specifically with AI solutions such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Co-pilot, that are growing just as fast as new technology is being deployed. So it begs the question, are these AI technology solutions reliable and giving proper credit to my intellectual property — as well as the property of all authors, bloggers, artists and other content creators?
Time will tell.
Taylor is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in data analytics, graphic design, and both digital and social media marketing. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. Taylor enjoys analyzing people’s behaviors and attitudes to find out what motivates them, and then curating better ways to communicate with them.