In this BSA series – “Why AI?” – enterprise software leaders explain in their own words how artificial intelligence (AI) is having a positive impact on individuals, businesses, and organizations worldwide. In this submission, Microsoft Partner Group Product Manager, Responsible AI Leader for Azure AI, and OpenAI Technologies Sarah Bird writes about bringing the power of next-generation AI to work.
1. Why AI?
AI is the defining technology of our time. Microsoft’s investment in AI spans the company, from Teams and Outlook to Bing and Xbox. We want to democratize our breakthroughs in AI through Azure to help people and organizations be more productive and help solve society’s most pressing problems. We’re committed to making the promise of AI real — and doing it responsibly.
We are bringing the power of next-generation AI to work. We are developing copilots, which combine the power of large language models with data in the Microsoft graph and the Microsoft 365 apps to create a copilot for work. Microsoft 365 Copilot helps unleash creativity, unlock productivity, and uplevel skills. With these new tools, people can be more creative in Word, more analytical in Excel, more expressive in PowerPoint, more productive in Outlook, and more collaborative in Teams.
With a technology this powerful, we have an even greater responsibility to make sure that it’s developed, deployed, and used responsibly. Establishing the right guardrails early in development not only helps ensure safety, security, and trustworthiness, it also allows us to better unlock AI’s positive impact on communities across the US and around the world.
2. Can you give an example?
Microsoft’s approach has given us the ability to see ever-expanding ways for AI to improve people’s lives. We’ve seen AI help save individuals’ eyesight, make progress on new cures for cancer, generate new insights about proteins, and provide predictions to protect people from hazardous weather. Other innovations include fending off cyberattacks and helping to protect fundamental human rights.
With our Security Copilot service, we are equipping customers with AI-powered tools that make security teams more efficient and simplify complex tasks. Currently, in limited preview, the Security Copilot brings together multiple systems and security tools to make incident response faster and threat intelligence analysis more efficient.
As we outlined in our recent white paper, it’s not enough to focus only on the many opportunities to use AI to improve people’s lives. As technology moves forward, it’s just as important to ensure proper control over AI as it is to pursue its benefits. We are committed and determined as a company to develop and deploy AI in a safe and responsible way. We recently joined several other industry partners and the Biden-Harris administration in new voluntary commitments focused on ensuring AI systems are safe, secure, and trustworthy. We also made six additional commitments, which advance our responsible AI practices.
3. Where can we learn more?
From our latest company announcements to exciting storytelling on how customers and partners are putting AI advancements to use, visit Microsoft Source to learn more. If you are interested in exploring AI-powered search, visit Bing, where you can search, unlock a new chat experience, or generate new content. For our latest thinking around the policies, laws, and regulations around AI, as well as our commitment to operationalizing and building a culture of responsible AI, visit our recent blogs: How Do We Best Govern AI? and Our Commitments To Advance Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI.
About the author:
Sarah Bird is Partner Group Product Manager, Responsible AI Leader for Azure AI and Open AI Technologies at Microsoft. She leads responsible AI for foundational AI technologies at Microsoft. She works to accelerate the adoption and positive impact of AI by bringing together the latest innovations in research, product, and policy to enable the use of new AI technologies, such as generative AI models.
