Dynamics Communities Biz Apps Partner Podcast

Biz Apps Partner Podcast: How the Progression of AI Elevates Innovation

Episode Summary

Welcome to the “Biz Apps Partner Podcast,” a weekly video series designed to decentralize intelligence about how partners can scale their Microsoft practice by having short, to-the-point discussions with Microsoft leaders in product, engineering, marketing, partner management, programs, and more. In episode 33, John Siefert hosts Steve Cohen for a conversation on how the business technology landscape has shifted with the adoption and optimization of AI, Agents, and Copilots.

Episode Notes

Key Takeaways:

• Evolution of business applications: Technology has clearly been rapidly evolving. "It's all about getting people to work where they're working and getting tools to be updated silently to the end user and abstracting them away from a discrete system of record experience and drive toward a system of productivity experience," Cohen notes. He defines "systems of productivity" as where you're doing your daily work, such as Outlook or Teams.
• The impact of Agents and Copilots: Using Agents and Copilots has changed the conversations that partners are having with customers. The dialogue itself might not entirely be changing but the answers to the problems certainly are. He suggests we're moving away from building apps and needing to customize so much to now enabling more of a conversational approach to problem-solving.
• Industry-specific AI: Organizations can optimize AI within the context of their industries to work more seamlessly, drive more revenue, and create more profitability. "It's about figuring out optimization of an effective day for every role within the organization," Cohen says. It requires defining horizontal and vertical elements across the business. It will also require fine-tuned prompt engineering which is essentially just asking good questions. "We need to train people to be super curious and ask really good questions" and go back to a 10-year-old mentality "of just asking, always on, asking questions, and asking for help...People that really adopt that are going to have some big success going forward."
• Cloud innovation and AI: Evolving from on-premise to the cloud and now cloud environments within the context of AI, there's opportunity for continuous innovations. Customers can then start applying these in real-time as they're coming through within the context of the implementation they're working within. The speed of adoption has significantly increased with this technological progression, as the cloud has set a foundation for rapid innovation.
• Future of AI : At this point, cloud is not the innovation; AI is where the innovation is. Cloud SaaS sets the foundation for driving forward where the future of AI. If you don't go that route, Cohen states, then "there's likely challenges to your business in the near future."