Q+A: The AI breakthroughs exciting Microsoft’s Australia boss
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What is the main focus of the AI breakthroughs discussed?
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q&A, where we ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics, and more. I'm Sean Aylmer. There is a lot of hype around AI, stating the obvious, really. The challenge now is in converting that hype into real improvements for business. Today's episode is the first in a series partnering with the Microsoft AI Tour in Sydney this week, exploring how businesses can drive real change with the latest AI technology. Jane Livesey is President of Microsoft Australia and New Zealand. Jane, welcome to Fear and Greed. Thank you. Five months in the role.
How's it going? Amazing. Loving it. Very, very busy. I need more. Busy. Super exciting time. I joined Microsoft because I really felt that it was such an opportune time in this market. We're seeing, you know, AI really take off and Microsoft has a really important role to play in it, not just from a technology standpoint, but really embedding trust and safety in everything we do.
Yeah, I mean, you've picked a great time to take that job because that last five months or so seems to have had as much change in technology as any other five-month period I've lived through. Is that all about AI?
How is AI transforming healthcare and education?
Look, it's many things, but I think, you know, it's amazing. We used to always think in decades or in a couple of years. The last five months have been incredibly busy. As Australia, we're really in an inflection point. We were using AI in its early stages for doing things faster and being more productive. Now we're really looking at how we embed AI into our organisations. How do we really benefit Australians from anything from how do we educate our children? How do we solve healthcare problems? But it's a big shift.
Okay, so let's talk about what it actually is. Is it a technology first change or is it a people leadership change?
I'm going to say it's a judgment. For AI really to be adopted well, it requires both technology and people and good leadership judgment. We need organizations to really think about how they want to use it, the purpose, but also how are they going to really drive change within their teams and their people and really enable that. And so, no, it's not just about the technology. It is really about how we change.
So do you think the organisations that do it best, it'll be a whole of business change rather than just introducing AI?
Definitely. We are seeing, you know, actually I think Westpac is a really great example. We'll have Anthony Miller live on stage with us at the AI tour.
What role does leadership play in AI adoption?
And... Westpac are really fundamentally adopting AI quite rapidly. They're putting it into practice. One of the greatest things that Westpac has done is given access to 35,000 employees to co-pilot one of our AI tools. And what that's doing is it's changing culture. It's enabling teams to experiment and really to understand how they can use AI to innovate. And it's organizations that are bringing it into their fabric. They're thinking about their strategy. They're thinking about their technology and they're putting their people at the heart of it that are really making the most progress.
And we're not here saying for or against Westpac, but they have a major technology program going on anyway, trying to get their legacy systems out. So to actually put this in on top, it's kind of interesting that they're committed enough to really give it 35,000 people with AI on top of everything else they're doing, which probably means they trust AI. Yeah.
And the first thing I think is they're not putting it on top. And that's one of the really important things with AI. They're really embedding it into the way that they're working. They're really enabling people. They're reinventing their business processes. They're looking at how they unlock the value from their data really to deliver better service to their customers and better products. And it's when you really embed AI into your business and actually rethink the way that you operate where you start to see really strong outcomes.
This is like the AI blueprint rather than the AI pilot.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main focus of the AI breakthroughs discussed?
0:05–1:23
2
How is AI transforming healthcare and education?
1:23–2:48
3
What role does leadership play in AI adoption?
2:48–6:15
4
How are organizations successfully embedding AI into their operations?
6:15–8:54
5
What challenges do businesses face when integrating AI?
8:54–10:52
Speakers
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