Microsoft Ignite 2024 kicks off today in Chicago with exciting announcements about Copilot Agents; File-Level Archiving in Microsoft 365 Archive; and SharePoint Advanced Management, now bundled with Copilot.

We‘re excited to announce the launch of our new podcast, Polaris Pathways - a Synozur podcast! With Polaris, we bring you the latest discoveries and insights from the worlds of leadership, culture and technology. Our first episode looks at emerging leadership roles for AI - titled "CIAO means goodbye, but say hello to the CAIO."

The emergence of the Chief AI Officer (CAIO) role reflects the growing importance of AI in various business operations, necessitating a dedicated leadership position to navigate its complexities. The CAIO is crucial for aligning AI capabilities with strategic business goals, managing ethical considerations and responsible AI practices, and addressing the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Additionally, CAIOs are vital for bridging the talent gap in AI, ensuring business focus in AI initiatives, and signaling the organization’s commitment to AI innovation and resource allocation.

Based on Synozur data from the M365 Conference, there’s a lot of ungoverned AI experimentation but not a lot of deployment at scale (yet). Organizations are excited about AI, but worried about security and cost.

I asked Bing to compose a short, funny blog post with this prompt:

Can you make up a story about what gen-z has in common with a Doberman riding a bike?

This was in response to a fun bit of design work I was demonstrating using Microsoft Designer.

Microsoft's Copilot, an AI suite, dominated the M365 Conference. A study shows its value in contact centers, improving productivity and reducing turnover. The post highlights potential value and urges companies to look at the business-case for AI.