E83 - Inside the AI Shift: Microsoft on Change and Copilot - Podcast With Ian Heard

But the big kicker and to your point around change management , ali was big difference between those who were able to turn that one hour a day into productive time , ie do something more valuable or turn it into real productivity savings was the number three .

And three was the number of training sessions they attended , and so the moment they had those three training sessions , they were able to recognize those productivity gains , which I thought was fascinating at the time .

In this episode , we talk about the real story behind Generative AI Co-Pilot , what change looks inside Microsoft and why the role of a change manager might just be turning into a chief excitement officer , from navigating resistance yes , even inside Microsoft to embracing a genetic workflows .

This episode offers a grounded look at how leadership and curiosity go hand in hand in today's fast-moving world . We also dig into what makes AI adoption truly work the mindset , the momentum and the magic that happens when teams stop asking if it works and start exploring how it can help .

This one is real , practical , with a good humor , forward-looking ideas and insights for anyone navigating what's next ? I am grateful to have Ian chatting with me today . Well , ian , thank you so much for joining me in the In a Game of Change podcast . I am eternally grateful for your time .

we start , it would be fantastic to introduce yourself to my audience .

Pertaining to all things modern work across our Microsoft 365 stack and also our virtualization stack with solutions like Windows 365 , actual virtual desktop and then , coupled with that , also our fantastic devices on the surface .

Yeah , yeah , absolutely , absolutely , I think , for me , the modern work we moved from modern workplace to modern work and I think we made that call around COVID time , when obviously the lines between the workplace and work had blurred hugely and so for us , modern work and others have called it the digital workplace and new ways of work are just really how

day-to-day traditional work activities can be infused with digital technology and to make , hopefully , employees more productive but also enable them to progress their careers , look after areas like well-being and also address , I think , the thing that probably all , at some stage in our lives , have addressed , had to address , which is the work-life balance or , as I've

recently heard , it called , work-life harmony , because I think the opportunity for balance is long gone . It's more now how we can harmonize the interaction between work and home . If a balance is long gone , it's more now how we can harmonize the interaction between work and home .

Back in I guess it would have been 2006 , 2007 . And that was the moment for me that you stopped finishing your day at 5.30 , 6 o'clock or whatever that time was , and you started to live that 24-hour life .

So I think it's been a real journey for the workplace over the past 15 years or so 20 years or so is trying to find what is that right balance , what is that right harmony . And as you said , ali , you've hit part of that harmony , which is you're doing , what you're interested in , which is just crucial .

and I mean what I love about what you do , what you guys do at Microsoft . Change and advancement is at the heart of everything you do . I'm going to share with you something funny .

I always think that there's a group of people in a very dark room somewhere in Microsoft and they're thinking of all of these user ideas , you know , and what the users need to have . And am I true ?

You know there's , there's that you've always got to have a really good balance . By you know to use the Henry Ford analogy by you know , sometimes you've got to build a faster horse , right but . But sometimes you've got to change the game completely .

And you know , certainly I think that's what we strive to do and I think that's you'll tell me you're far better qualified in the world of change than I am , but I think that's a crucial part of change . Sometimes you've got to completely change the game and sometimes you need to just do what you're doing now better .

That we've seen in that space since that stage has been just incredible market disruption . We're hearing of something new literally every week , aren't we ? In terms of how artificial intelligence is affecting the home , affecting work and , I think , more importantly , the promise that it's got to really transform everything we do going forward .

So , certainly from Microsoft's perspective , we've obviously been on a huge change initiative ourselves . You know , I remember Copilot .

I think the first out of the blocks that we had was GitHub Copilot , which really revolutionizes the overall productivity of the developer , and we're now seeing , you know , thousands and millions of lines of code being developed by GitHub Copilot and really extreme productivity gains there .

Then , literally , I remember sitting there in I think it was March March 2023 , I guess when Copilot was announced and , trust me , we found out the same day as you did and we were like , wow , this really changes the game .

You know , the ability to connect all of those amazing demonstrations we've seen with ChatGPT , but now be able to ground it securely in your work environment to really be able to provide that highly qualified intern to work alongside you .

And then the other interesting part for me , then , is okay , that really enables humans to do what they're doing today better and more productive . And you know , if you don't mind , ali , I'll just zoom out a little bit outside of Microsoft .

I think one of the things that we need to embrace here is the macro position for us and the macro opportunity and the macro position that we have , certainly in the developed world right now , which is that areas like unemployment are at an all-time low Productivity .

In most Western economies , productivity per capita is pretty flat right , given the certainly , since , if you wrap up mobile , cloud and now AI all into one trend and call it the digital industrial revolution , it hasn't really fulfilled that productivity game promise that we saw , maybe , in the steam revolution or the electricity revolution .

Yet is what I would say Not yet yes . Yeah . And then you look at , you know population growth , and population growth is flat to declining , right , populations are getting older .

Here in Australia , if I look at across Australia and New Zealand , you know our working age population will decline by on the current path , decline by 5% to 10% over the next 30 years . And the number because of , you know , the great advances in healthcare that we all experienced we're going to have 5% to 10% more people in .

You know , if you like , retirement age , yeah , so we're going to have 5% to 10% more people in . You know , if you like retirement age . So we're going to have 5% to 10% less people supporting 5% to 10% people more and people having less children , et cetera , et cetera .

So we're left with this deep requirement now to really accelerate human productivity and human ingenuity . It's a must , not a nice to have , you know you could argue things like the steam revolution . Human productivity and human ingenuity , it's a must , not a nice to have .

You know you could argue things like steam revolution , that was a nice to have that accelerated human productivity . This is a must , and so I think for me , artificial intelligence just couldn't come at a better time . It's , you know , yes , there are areas of change that we need to get through .

There are considerations we have to work through with our customers , with our partners and within our own technology groups , but we're in an extremely exciting time . I think , and just very , very blessed that I'm in an organization that's at the forefront of that .

But then to introduce the change to the outside world , that change would need to happen internally to their employees . Yes , yeah , talk to me about any . You know somebody working at an organization like Microsoft . Does that mean that the traditional way we look at managing change ?

Okay , well , let me put it in a simple format Does that mean that there is no change ? Resistance from people inside Microsoft when it comes to changes ? Because that's the core of what you do .

environment and the role change the human . Yeah , look , find me a human who says that they always love change and I'll find you a liar right . But without a doubt , look , I think we are in a constant state of change , ali , and I think , for Microsoft , you know we've worked really hard , especially since Satya's come in . Look , a lot's been written .

I don't know if you've read Satya's book or anything like this about a hidden restart or a hidden refresh , hidden restart or hidden refresh but you know , one of the big cultural resets Satya put into our business was this idea of growth mindset and this theory of constant learning , constant change and constant growth , and it's something that we've really driven hard

since Satya came in . I think Satya came in 2014 , I believe 2013 , 2014 . And it's something that we've really instilled . You know , to our own admission , you know , the previous 10 years or so , we've missed big waves like mobile , you know when .

Really , that was a market that we could and maybe should have capitalized on , and we knew that in certain places , like cloud , we were maybe a little bit behind at the time . You know , guys like Google and AWS had blazed a trail there , and others at the time , and we also needed to be more responsive to new market trends .

So first and foremost is our culture and our culture around growth mindset was fundamental . And coupled into that then was that needs to be more than just a sign up in the office . You know , it needs to be something that we drive through .

So we changed a lot around how we measure success in our organization and we use basically three differentiation spheres when we look at impact in our organization .

So it's not just good enough that you contribute individually , because if you contribute individually , that gives you that kind of self-serving approach where it's okay to do whatever you want as long as you hit your target , and in an organization of 250,000 people that isn't conducive to a productive environment .

So the next part that we added and I think probably the most crucial areas is the next is how do you contribute to the success of others ? So how do you help those around you to be better and to develop and to be more effective ? And the next one is how do you build on the work of others to to drive ?

So maybe give you an example you know I lead a sales team , um , and say I don't know , say we're working with your organization and then to me , nirvana is that your accounts executive or sales specialists . They research trends that they're seeing around , say co-pilot utilization across the world . What are other universities doing ? What are the learnings we're doing ?

What have their contemporaries done in other parts of the world or their peers locally here in Australia and New Zealand done ? Okay , great . Then we've taken that . So that's building on the work of others . We've then turned that into something that will add value to your organization , to the truck , and that's great .

And then you know we get to a great position and that salesperson sells something to you Fantastic . But then , once they've done that , the journey for me doesn't stop there . How are they going to pass on those learnings to their peers ? Yeah , how are they going to contribute to the success of others ?

And so through that approach , it's really helped us evolve our culture , to change , to learning , to development and to sharing and collaboration . And it's a big part of our interview process . It's a big part . We don't just look at , you know , sales figures or how many lines of code they can develop .

It's culture first , there , which I think is just absolutely crucial . And then the last part of that is what I would say is and probably the thing that probably shocks people coming into Microsoft more than anything is with those foundations , how self-serve the culture is .

You know we don't really prescribe or micromanage the learning journey for our team members it's very much choose your own adventure . Yes , we have a vast library of learning , but we also encourage people to go out there and find their own learning as well , find their own insights and share it . So I think to the change management piece .

A lot of that change management is done amongst peers . We've almost got a culture of change in that model .

Anyway , as business partners , I haven't really seen anything different , apart from whoever I talk to . They're genuinely interested in my success as a client . And this is not a plugin , this is not anything . I've actually seen it and I experience it every time I get in touch with microsoft uh , that's good to hear .

Four or five months ago they released a report on the adoption of Copilot and one of the things that really sort of fascinated me about that report is that they were using because Copilot has been upgraded almost every day .

I have been living and breathing Copilot since January last year and I've seen the huge jump , especially around June or July last year , and now I love it . But I'm thinking they have experienced co-pilot when it was at the baby stages .

What's your take on that ? You know , because when we release a report about an old experience and the technology has already gone so far ahead , how do you marry and how do you balance those two things ?

So apologies if I'm using like a massively overused phrase or a buzzword phrase , but I really love how federal government took an approach of almost they stripped down this whole question of artificial intelligence down to the first principles .

Yes , and the first principle , really and , by the way , I'm massively paraphrasing and putting words into people's mouths with this , but I'll give my summary of what happened there was that the government and federal governments really were very keen to make a first leap into intergenerative AI because they could see , you know , from a first principle you know this , I

don't know about you , ali , I always work on the basis of is this something that is just going to happen , regardless of , you know , legislation , government , regardless of organizational interference , et cetera , et cetera , et cetera . Is this a trend that's ultimately going to happen ? You know , and certainly mobile , yes , was always going to happen .

The moment the iPhone 1 was launched . It was going to happen . Right , you could see the benefits , which is so clear .

Cloud it was definitely going to happen , right , you can see the benefits straight away in terms of the speed of innovation , the reduction in costs , increase in flexibility , et cetera , and it coincided with network backbone increasing monumentally , so it was always going to catch on . It was a matter of when , and I think generative AI falls into this bucket .

It's happening , it's going to it's happening . It's going to happen even faster and it's going to be a fundamental part of our life , in the same way as internet mobile cloud was . So I think I think they looked at it through that lens and this is my assumption . Yeah , and I think that was awesome .

They then looked at Copilot was a very small part of this . This overall discussion , um with federal government at the time , because what they were looking at was was fantastic , which is okay . Well , what does australia need to do to be competitive in this space and to thrive in this space , not be a victim of change ? Yeah , and so they .

You know we started discussions with the government that resulted in , uh , australia being the first country on the planet where Microsoft had announced an investment in be comfortable that generative AI was a big part of this .

The next was federal government then saying , ok , well , that's great from an infrastructure and foundational , but how do we put our initial toe in the water ? You know what's the generative AI ? Almost training wheels that we can bring into our environment to see the benefits .

Today , and this is where we went with at the time , the six-month trial with Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot . To your point , around the trial and towards the increase and the improvement of Microsoft 365 Copilot . The trial went from December 2023 through to the 30th of June 2024 .

And the report from the Digital Transformation Agency , the D dta , was written from there .

So a lot of the findings there , to your point , you know , as I keep saying to my team and to customers you've probably heard me say it before is you know , our product is only going to get better and the users are only going to get more proficient um from here on in right um , and so for even that first six months , you know we were seeing of the

report an an average of an hour a day productivity gain . And then you dive into OK , where were they seeing it ? It was only , really , if you look at the report , in Teams , in the enterprise chat capability and then Word , I think , were the top three .

There , you know there was recognition that Excel was still improving and you know recently we've improved with Python for Excel .

They couldn't use largely the Outlook capability , which email is a big productivity driver was seen inside of Microsoft 365 Copilot , the ability to , you know , summarize and prioritize your inbox , and because that was only available in Outlook New at the time , not Outlook Classic , which it is now , it's available in Outlook New at the time , not Outlook Classic , which

it is now it's available in Outlook Classic . So to be able to get those levels of productivity gains were just incredible .

But the big kicker and to your point around change management , ali , was big difference between those who were able to turn that one hour a day into productive time , ie do something more valuable or turn it into real productivity savings , was the number three . And three was the number of training sessions they attended .

Yeah , and so the moment they had those three training sessions they were able to recognize those productivity gains , which I thought was fascinating at the time .

The people that I introduced to Copilot at the time and Copilot was just getting up to speed with the enhancements and getting better , basically , when I lost their confidence in the system , it was hard for me to regain it later , and because they saw one version of it and therefore , with my change management practice , I actually changed my narrative .

And so my narrative was that stay a little bit longer with it , and the longer you stay with this , the better it will get , the better . You'll be familiar with that . And then that did not work , and so I shifted my narrative into a different thing . Don't be disheartened if copola does not respond to you the way you would like it to respond Not yet .

So I tried different ways to gain that , because , like with any new technology , there's always doubt . You know what is this and all of that , plus the noise in the market , you know this is going to replace people's jobs , and so it was quite overwhelming .

But my story so far is that , and I'll give you , you know a sentiment from somebody on Monday and they said that there's absolutely no way I can do anything without CoPilot now . And that's a huge mind shift . And the same people that I talked to in March and April last year . It's the same people .

Now they're saying actually , we heard it's actually doing good things . So I was always fascinated about how the government has gone about what I call the old version in my head anyway , the old version of CorePilot and the upgraded version . However , what Microsoft is doing as well is doing change management .

So what OpenAI has done , they've basically released it to the masses and say use it . That's actually change management . You experiment with it , you play with it , and I loved what you guys did as well . You've added , for example , copilot and 2Edge as a version in there at the start and people can play with it , and I really admire the level of support .

I think that is a deep understanding from Microsoft on the power of focusing on how this manage . Sorry , this change needs to be managed within an organization . The level of support and interest that I got from Microsoft was tremendous and that gives me a very good idea about how they think about change management .

This speed of innovation here is so great , but also the parameters of how it can transform are so open . You know it's . I go back to the days where you know I used to be . You know , my primary line of business was voice PBXs . Well , that had , you know , 60 different functions and that's what it did . Right , you know 50 , 60 different functions .

You know 58 of them people didn't want to use . They just want to be able to pick up a phone and do voicemail . Right , that's realistically what they wanted . So you just train them on that stuff , you know . The reality is for me is you know , there's no point writing a manual for this thing because it's gonna .

It's gonna change and also the the people doing the change management you know , it's not you don't just get up and train people on this . Right , you've got to get interaction , you've got to get peers talking to each other , a champion network . And I'm just , firstly , let me just recognize , you know it's been awesome partnering with yourself , ali .

You know the creativity that you've brought in terms of things like your champion networks , in terms of how you've been able to manage the change management program there , has just been phenomenal and it's been great to see some of the impact there . And I think , though you know , from a Microsoft side , it's really great that you know you're recognizing the .

You know the team are really invested in this . You know , outside of job description , we're really invested in this because

we're still learning with you . You know this isn't the PBX with 68 different functions . Right , this is us learning what it does every day with you . And you know this is going to go even greater now as we expand into the agentic world .

You know we're able to bring together now the core Microsoft 365 Copilot capability and then expanding it to your applications and how your applications can work with each other in an agentic world with Microsoft 365 Copilot . You know the opportunities here and the use cases start to become limitless .

So I think the agile manner is just so crucial , and the link between Microsoft , our customers and then the different user base within our customers is what's going to drive change here . This constant sharing the contribution towards each other's success is going to be just fundamental .

And certainly those organizations with that kind of culture , those who are going to thrive best , I think , in the AI world .

Yes , the reality is , in the next two years , the bulk I'd say the vast majority of , certainly information workers and I would suggest the workforce in general won't be going into Outlook or Teams as their first port of call , like they do today . When they come into the office , they'll be asking , hopefully , their co-pilot , they'll be asking co-pilots , I think .

Then , culturally and you may have heard Satya's and if not , I'll share with you the link , maybe you share with it in your post Satya's recent podcast where he was talking about the move of business logic out of SaaS applications into the agents going forward and the opportunities that that brought .

Yes , and so I look at that and then go , okay , well , if that is the evolution which personally I think he's absolutely spot on , then what does that mean for organizational cultures going forward and the fluidity of an organization ? You know so we've always been traditionally siloed .

You know whether it's you know finance or you know the faculty area in an education environment , sales , marketing , et cetera , et cetera . You know frontline services , et cetera , et cetera , et cetera , you know , frontline services , et cetera .

This , the move from those applications now to become , you know , those applications now to in effect just become crud databases , with the business process now lying in the agents , enables us to bring together the culture of an organization very closely , where we've got real visibility into each other's lives and real , really a much less siloed environment .

So I don't have a clear answer on what that will mean for culture , but certainly , as I mentioned before , the big thing for me for culture is that it's the skills and the culture that's going to thrive , going forward , which is just crucial .

You know , I think a collaborative culture , I think one where we're open to learning off each other , not , you know , shooting guns at each other's silos , but actually learning off each other .

You know , I'm not sure the answer is moving to a completely agile world , you know , but certainly having some of those agile principles underneath to bring together those tribes , those scrums , to work together across the organization , I think would be crucial .

And then and then outside of that , you know , a culture of sharing , where you know we really start to learn what's working in other areas and what can drive forward .

I think that what it also means , though , for me , for leadership and the skills going forward , is a much greater focus and you'll notice , ali , like if I , if I strip down the people that I've worked with who have gone on to have the most impactful careers . Yeah , what is the big thing that they're great at Right ?

They're great at clarity of thought , clarity of communication . They're good at understanding data sets and been able to articulate that and expand around that , and that's that , that skill set there . Not only will it not go away , but those people will rise to the top in organizations very , very quickly . You know , no longer in AI world will we value stewardship .

You know your ability to navigate . I'm the only guy who knows how to use this database right .

I am anticipating that at some stage , there will be some pushback from certain departments and there will be lots of talk around access to information and all of that .

I've seen , I've heard and I've seen that talk , maybe 12 months ago , and then it dissipated after a while , because then people actually started realizing the value of the new technology and there are different ways to protect the information without missing out on the opportunity of the technology , because the benefits outweigh those in there .

So I'm definitely seeing that happening . I had a conversation with one of the guests last year and then she's a professor at Oxford and then she talked about the education experience in high school , and I still remember that and made me think about everything else , and she said something around that students nowadays we give them an A or excellent .

That students nowadays we give them an A or excellent , but that excellent before the internet world was different , excellent from after the internet world and now that excellent will be different after generative AI , so the standard will be raised Then .

That gives me the feeling and the idea and the thinking that even in the workplace , performance measures will be different because you've got capability now , but an amazing capability at your fingertips , and so maybe in the next three years performance expectations will be different because we can do we can be more creative , we can probably do more Like .

I know that generative AI gives me the flexibility and the capacity to service more clients , for example , and with the quality at the same time . So that's how I'm seeing it . But whatever shift we're going to see although it might be disruptive a little bit , but it's going to be a good shift .

I think I am enjoying more golf put it that way nowadays than then then before , mainly because I know on your right , I think the sentiment that I start every day checking in with co-pilot rather than going to individual applications . That's already happening . There's a change in the workflow and how we're actually managing these things From where you sit .

I just want to know , maybe a question around in general businesses in Australia are they still the majority still thinking about whether this is going to stick or not ?

Certainly the last three months , I've seen a big change both in private and public sector organisations . I think where we are right now , if I look , you've probably got , you know , you've still got quite a large base .

So if I look now at our enterprise business , I can't give exact percentages , but a very high percentage of our customer base right now has some sort of deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot in their workplace , some sort of deployment of Copilot Studio for their agents environments or their building applications around Azure OpenAI . Then it's okay .

Well , what are the tiers that we're seeing ? Yeah , and where do we see most of those customers ? There's still a pretty solid chunk who are putting their toe in the water .

Maybe they've rolled it out by the way , I'll challenge some of the strategies there but maybe they've rolled it out to a few people in IT and they've rolled it out typically to key executives . Yeah , to make sure that either they can drum up enough sponsorship or say that they're on the journey just in case somebody goes . What are we doing about AI ?

I think that's fine and look , it's good to know . I think the important thing for IT getting their hands on it is that you're comfortable with the security , compliance and governance , and there's no oversharing risks , et cetera , et cetera . So I completely get that . I think , though , we're and I'm sure you'll agree this , ali with your own journey .

This only really comes to light when you get it into users' hands , and you know you really start seeing human creativity take over , and so I would say where the bulk of our customers are now are in this what I would class as personal productivity layer . Yeah , where they're looking at Microsoft 365 , copilot , and you know you look back .

Csiro have just released their results of the Copilotpilot trial , of their Microsoft 365 co-pilot trial .

You know you mentioned DTA there , and even you may have seen one recently with Brisbane Catholic Education , where they identified the personal productivity gain of educators saving 9.3 hours per week of educator time , and I think that and don't get me wrong that is fantastic DTA trial . We're finding an hour a day .

Csiro didn't get , I don't think got down to an actual level of hours , but showed a general recognition of productivity there in the report , but I think we're scratching the surface there with those figures .

Yes , and that's that personal productivity layer , where we're basically using it for summarizing first draft summarized first draft and things like meeting recap inside a team , being very popular and certainly I love it . I use it every day . It enables me to double and triple book myself and still stay across things , so I like that .

The next stage , though , is , I think , where we're now seeing , literally in the past , I would say past three or four months customers really go quite quick , and that is around organizational impact .

So , taking that , assuming that we can get that kind of 10% productivity gain let's say , 10 to 15% productivity gain that I mentioned before , which is fantastic , right , the productivity dividend that that enables organizations to focus on other things in their organization , I think is fantastic .

The next part , though , is how do we look at our business process layer and how do we look at infusing that Microsoft 365 Copilot with agents , you know , bringing together our core systems of records , our core business processes , and infusing that with generative AI ?

Yeah , you know , I was just using ours yesterday , where I was combining data from , you know , our customer data , from our CRM database , with our financial data , and this this before would have been hours and hours of work .

In fact , hand on heart , I'm not particularly good at VLOOKUPs myself , but being able to do that inside of the chat , inside of Copilot I , and come back with just amazing results that are super useful , that I can literally just copy and paste and put into a management report , were just incredible .

That that , literally there , right there , saved me three hours with one task , yeah , and , and so this is where I think we're going to start to see this , uh , really really take off . But without a doubt , I would say , you know , if you split between those three tiers , we're going to start to see this really , really take off .

But without a doubt , I would say , you know , if you split between those three tiers , we're now seeing .

If you would have asked me six months ago , I'd say 90% of our customers are in that , you know , tested . I would say now we're probably looking at maybe 20% of our customers in that line . They've now shifted up to productivity , personal productivity , and we're now seeing a 10 to 20% .

I would say maybe more looking at okay , what does this agentic layer mean for us going forward ?

I've already chosen names for my agents and I'm going to I'm going to collect them .

But one thing that I always talk to people about , and certainly with the clients I work with , is that it's no longer can co-pilot to generative AI improve my productivity or not . That argument is already done . We've already proved it . You do not need like .

If there's any advice I can give to anybody , do not spend your resources in testing whether that is going to make a productivity gain or not . It's already doing it .

You need to think about how can all of your people get hold of this technology , how you support them and train them and look forward to the advancement , like I'm already thinking about how the eugenic world is going to shape up my workflow as a professional . So that's one .

The second thing , for example , I work now with La Trobe University and we've got about 200 people using COVID and about 80% of them use it on a daily basis .

I always say to these people you're already making an impact on the organization , because every time you use CorePilot to process a task or send a document , the ripple effect on the organization is already happening . So it's not just your workflow and that's why other people will actually see what Copart is doing and say can we have a license ?

And all of these things . So if there's any advice I can give to anybody listening to this podcast , stop saying is this really real and it's going to improve my productivity . It does .

The only difference is that only competency and really understanding of the technology , which is not as shatteringly difficult , especially in Microsoft now , is making the experience so easy , like one of the changes that you guys made recently is that whenever you look at Microsoft Core Pilot , in whatever setting , it's the same experience .

You're actually seeing the same things . Now , that's amazing from a change management perspective . Now , that's an amazing from a change management perspective . You're actually creating the same consistent , cohesive picture that whatever you look at co-op art , it's the same experience . So you don't need to think about it differently .

Maybe six months ago it was not , but now it's actually wonderfully .

What's your advice to people in the change management community when it comes to the generative AI and AI as a technology going forward , does that mean that we need to think about our profession , not just as users , but we think forward , about our customers and clients who will be using this technology and how we help them adopt that change .

I work now across , obviously , all of the public sector markets . The reality is , for an information worker , a typical information worker , 90% of what an information worker does in a bank is the same as what they do in government . There's that 10% finia , which makes us different .

So , absolutely , you could take the DTA report and transfer that over to a financial services institution . And there's your business case , right . What I would do , though , that , I think , is way more , you know , I guess , back your business case , right . What I would do , though , that , I think , is way more . You know .

It gets back to first principles , right . The reality about this is generative . Ai is out there already . People are using it every day . Chatgpt is the most used consumer tool that has ever been seen on the planet at this stage of its release .

People you then look at most advanced sorry , the most adopted applications in the world right now at a consumer level . So you have ChatGPT granted . You have Google Search , which now has Gemini Gemini Infusion . People are using that every single day . You open up WhatsApp , it's got AI infusion in there . Facebook , Instagram , et cetera , et cetera .

People are using this every day and they're getting used to it . Don't be the person that , when they come into work , go , oh no , you can't use that or we're going to shut it down , right .

So the answer is you just need a solution that is secure , that you trust within your own environment , that is going to give generative AI capability and , by the way , that's what we've just done with you may have seen with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chats , which we're now making available to every Entra , everybody with a work ID and Entra ID .

So then , taking that forward to the change management side , and I think it's a really interesting point of change management , Ali , and you know you've been again , you're way more in this space than I am day to day , but I look at the role really of the change manager to move now from chief teaching officer to chief excitement officer , and I'll give you an

example . Actually , some of Latrobe's students may have been there . I was in Sydney recently and we had a room full of university students and we asked them a question and we said how many people use generative AI every day Maybe chat GPTs and others every day ? Everybody put their hand up .

How many of you pay for chat GPTs premium version out of your own back pocket ? These are students , university students . This is $30 per user per month in the US . I believe Seventy-five percent of the room put their hand up . By the way , they've clearly got a lot more money than I did when I was a student .

I can't remember having $30 a month available at the end of the month , and it just shows this is now a staple diet of a modern worker . You know these are people coming into the workforce in the next year or two , right , that are going to be expecting this so and are fluent already .

Yeah , so I think , starting from that premise that you know I don't know if you've seen our work lab details and maybe we can post in the chat after this is we do something called the Work Trend Index , and the Work Trend Index said that 75% of people surveyed worldwide and this is thousands of people worldwide 75% of people use generative AI tools in work

today and 78% of those tools are not IT-sanctioned , are not corporate-sanctioned . So this space is done . So there is what I would say with it is and look , hopefully the answer is Microsoft 365 Copilot or one of our Copilots at Microsoft , which are obviously enterprise-grade and secure and de-risk these environments .

But if it's not ours , then the reality is , for organizations , the constant risk of doing nothing right now , or going slow , is way more than the cost of doing something or moving fast and taking advantage of this new technology .

So , to go back to the change management journey , the change management journey for me is , you know again , moving away from hey , it's a manual and I need to teach you on this manual . You know the old PBX days or whatever towards a much more creating a vibrant environment for change in an organization . You know , and you've done a fantastic job of this .

You know you've built . You know you've built your champion communities . You've created forums to share . You've . You know we do it . I don't think we've ever done , side by side with our customers , so many excitement days .

And you know , say , in public sector , right now we have our co-parlor club where , you know , through Engage , we've connected hundreds of public sector users across Australia and New Zealand to collaborate with each other and to crowdsource ideas on how to make each other more productive . So I think this is , you know .

To me , this is what it's all about now is it's , you know , chief excitement officer . For me is the role of a change manager going forward .

Um , and that's the only way to know this challenge is actually to embrace it heavily , heavily , and , for example , I've proved it through through experiments with the change managers I work with it saves us about 30% . This is even , I'm pretty sure you know , with time and competency it will be even more .

And so the questions will always be to organizations when people will get more time , how do we find ways to give them more meaningful work ? That will be really the main question for organizations , because giving people meaningful work is a hard thing . But that's for another day and another discussion , ian , with you .

It's how do we elevate humans to do better work , more impactful work and , as I said , like , look , you're in higher education . See the educators in higher education today and in K-12 massively . What's the commonality they have with doctors , nurses , emergency services right now ? And the thing they have in common is they're pretty much across the board .

A key corporate strategy with all of them right now is how do we take the pressure off them , how do we reduce their workload ? How do we make this a more attractive place to work ? How do we elevate their purpose ? And this is the opportunity now with generative AI , not the kind of scare mongering sides where it's going to cost everybody's jobs .

The reality is the Western world right now is seeing unemployment levels that have been the lowest in generations . This is about how do we elevate , how do we become ? You know , take government , education and private organizations to a whole different level of transformation and evolution going forward .

Thank you , first of all , to Microsoft for persevering and not missing out on the opportunity , like they did with the iPhone . Your CEO took charge and I really loved him and I follow him all the time and I love what you guys do .

Maybe next time , not too distant in the future , I'll get you back again , ian , and then we cover another aspect , or maybe the journey so far , because this conversation probably will be old in about three months and that's right . Yes , how would people connect with you , ian ?

you for listening . If you found this episode valuable , remember to subscribe to stay updated on upcoming episodes .

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Remember , and in my opinion , change is an enduring force and you will only have a measure of certainty and control when you embrace it . Until next time , thank you for being part of the Inner Game of Change community . I am Ali Juma , and this of the Inner Game of Change community . I am Ali Jammah , and this is the Inner Game of Change podcast .