SPOKE: GENERATIVE AI AND COPILOT FOR MICROSOFT 365
Author: Jonathan Stuckey
Movements in AI leading to accelerated outcomes
The new generation of productivity services are becoming a main-stream necessity
Today everybody is on hoping on the AI and ML bandwagon, and fast-leaders like: OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are funnelling an ever-increasing amount of funding and focus into this space. Capitalising on what has been a rapid recent evolution of the technologies building for decades is becoming usable in ever increasing levels of sophistication. But which ones do you use, how and why?
To be clear Spoke are a Microsoft centric partner when it comes to technology. We tend to want to focus on understanding what they offer and how to get the best for our customers who use Microsoft as preferred platform provider, but we do this so we can advocate for or against use in an appropriate way. We categorically do not advocate for using tools which are misrepresented or not up-to-scratch - so we always keep an eye on the top-box in the quadrant and (more importantly) try these out in real-world scenarios.
The big guys are good at marketing, and in general the mainstream news is great at getting most of what's being said wrong, so how do you filter the hype to make a good choice? That's what we do.
Testing and recurring evaluations
At Spoke we have been testing and re-testing the mainstream releases of ChatGPT, DALL-E and other Generative AI toolsets since the big explosion of public accessibility in 2022. This year we'll be utilising Generative AI services in earnest across our public and customer-based content but with practiced and experienced eye on the output.
To this extent we intend to make use of following services:
...in support of various review, evaluation and research-based outcomes - including a number of our articles on this site.
To help you identify and understand what we have used and where, our articles will include "Notice of use of GenerativeAI" on the article, and an brief assessment on how useful (or not) the services were in that case.
Important to our company is that people understand what and how to get the best from their tools. To this extent we include on AI supported articles a critique of output or information leveraged for an article.
To date we have not seen an AI toolkit able to provide a complete assessment which is without bias, factual inaccuracies, and in some cases (hilariously) inappropriate responses.
Because of this we developed a focus on prompt-engineering, a critical-review of output and peer-review before we use output.
What does this mean for Spoke's choice of tools?
We will continue as part of ongoing good practice, to regularly assess changes in Microsoft's platform services, as well as at the equivalent mainstream offerings, to identify fit and practical usability - so we can help you understand what new opportunities they may present. We assess these with a view to understand choices of tools, add-on componentry and solutions which extend or support client needs.
Want to know what's making the grade for practical use of GenerativeAI in office productivity? We can help.
Want to know what we know? Give us a call!
For the best experience for your users, you need to know some of the tricks-of-the-trade and all the stuff Microsoft doesn't bother to tell you. Email us at hi@timewespoke.com
About the author: Jonathan Stuckey
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