While new technology can bring significant changes, industry experts urge everyone to be curious and start learning how Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances can positively impact your work, company and career.
That was the big take-away at a recent “Work Smarter with AI” event presented by The Scotiabank Women Initiative (SWI) for Global Banking and Markets.
Through a demonstration of AI-powered assistants from Microsoft, and pro tips from digital chat tool users, attendees learned how AI can help them research and write ‘on-target’ pitches and reports, plan and analyze team meetings, or even set an itinerary for their next trip.
Take your career and business to the next level
Yannick Lallement, Scotiabank Vice President and Chief AI Officer, praised the ways that Generative AI is transforming business, particularly in terms of process improvement, to streamline routine or labour-intensive text or data summarization tasks.
Most recently, Scotiabank took part in pilot testing of M365 Copilot, to assess how the tool can boost personal productivity: “We asked our pilot users to report how useful they found this tool in their daily work, and on a scale of one to five stars, the average was 3.9. And, several business areas have asked us to roll this tool out more widely.”
Since ‘seeing is believing’, Microsoft Digital Sales Executive Meghan Gaynor, and Microsoft Technology Specialist Jennifer Burke led an in-depth tour of Microsoft Copilot, the latest edition of the Microsoft Bing Chat ‘AI companion’, which takes the kind of capabilities of the widely known ChatGPT to the next level for individuals and enterprises.
Here’s what we learned:
Keep prompts short and succinct
While showcasing a wide variety of use cases for Microsoft Copilot, Jennifer provided practical tips for a novice working with an ‘AI personal assistant’ for the first time: “Sometimes people overthink it and they write prompts that are very long and complicated. Instead, think like you’re a manager telling an employee what to do. To get the best results, write ‘Give me this result and organize it in this way’.
Privacy concerns can be mitigated
When logged into Office 365, proprietary information or searches inputted into Microsoft Copilot are protected, so they don’t become part of the public domain. With that assurance, Jennifer also highlighted the benefits of M365 Copilot for work, which enables corporate users to search and leverage company data, to work productively across all their internal SharePoint, Teams and other internal data sources.
Accuracy and completeness of some AI searches can vary
While Jennifer acknowledged that the accuracy and completeness of some AI searches can vary, in the case of a presentation she whipped up for a staff meeting, she noted that, “This may not be exactly what you want, but I don’t know anyone who’s complaining that you get 10 well-organized slides in less than a minute. That’s a really good starting point that can save you a lot of time.”
Among Scotiabank Copilot users, Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets Managing Director and Global Head of Corporate Access, Karen Couldrey, observed the efficiencies that AI tools enable, particularly in reference to time consuming tasks like producing meeting minutes and sorting action items – tasks that keep us communicating better as an organization.
