Microsoft Ireland's GM on AI in the workplace

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Tech Talk with Jess Kelly 12 min 1 speaker 7 chapters transcribed 7 days ago

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What is the new Microsoft AI workplace research and why does it matter?

Jess Kelly 0:00

Yeah, this is Jess Kelly with you here on News Talk. Earlier this week, Netflix confirmed the pricing for users in Ireland is going up yet again. Uh, it is going to go up around twelve percent. Uh, for those of you on the standard plan, which will now be eighteen ninety-nine per month. Uh, those of us with the premium option, you're now going to be paying twenty-five ninety nine. a month, which again it ties into what we were talking about a few weeks ago in terms of uh Disney, somebody asked should they get the ad option with Disney or continue to pay for the full whack? The cost of streaming is insane. It's getting increasingly difficult to justify the spend on a lot of the streaming platforms for sure in my house and indeed uh the latest and greatest devices.

Jess Kelly 0:49

Uh but let me know what you think. Tech talk at newstalk.com. Now, Catherine Doyle is the general manager for Microsoft in Ireland. She's been there a number of years now. The company has undergone significant transformation over the last few years, obviously, like every single business. There's a lot of talk and a lot of focus on AI. But Microsoft recently conducted some new research to show the workers' attitudes and understanding of our artificial intelligence in the workplace. And I spoke to Catherine recently and I started by asking her to set out the stall and tell us a little bit more about this research.

Catherine Doyle 1:30

Absolutely. Thanks, Jess. Great to be here.

How are Irish workers reconsidering their career paths because of AI?

Catherine Doyle 1:32

So this is the fifth year in a row that we have um carried out this survey and it's to show how work is evolving in Ireland, specifically in the context of AI for this particular survey and what kind of trends and patterns are evolving, you know, generally in the workplace.

Jess Kelly 1:51

And one of the key standout figures that jumped out at me was that almost half of us are considering or reconsidering our career paths because of AI. What does that tell us or what should that tell us um in terms of our attitudes? Is this a great time of opportunity or do you think that that pla that that figure is coming from a place of fear?

Catherine Doyle 2:14

I well I think it's coming from a place of opportunity. Um what came out in the survey is that workers are building out their confidence and skills using AI. It's showing quite a large uh percentage now completely engaged with using AI on a daily basis to make their jobs better. It's also showing that it's improving their skills. So I think it's giving people confidence to move and maybe grow their careers. Whereas in the past they might have stayed in companies maybe and built longer tenure. Now they're quite happy to move for better opportunity.

Jess Kelly 2:48

We obviously recently had the leaving cert results and the CAO offers and so on, and it was interesting to look at some of the emerging trends in terms of the courses that young people are interested in. But for somebody who's say twenty or thirty years into the career at this stage, should they be worried or actively looking to upskill to ensure that their skill sets are still relevant in two, three, four years' time?

Catherine Doyle 3:11

I think, you know, the answer to that, I think they have to upskill. I think work now is something that's a permanent journey of learning and upskilling. Um and in fairness, for most of the the customers that we would deal with and talk to, age has not been a barrier. Uh we have found, you know, workers embracing this at all ages in in the workplace. Um, I think a key driver of that is the fact that you know the personal productivity side of AI makes you know your role a lot easier to actually operate and you can get through work more efficiently. So I I think that whereby we saw maybe two years ago. there was a little bit of reticence and, you know, thinking about, you know, what they would do with AI.

What skills and confidence are employees gaining from daily AI use?

Catherine Doyle 3:53

We're finding from this survey, it's showing that broadly everyone has jumped in.

Jess Kelly 3:57

Mm, yeah, it's interesting. One of the most stark stats was that almost 90% of people are using AI saying it's improving their quality of l of work. I suppose for those of us who are using it every day, it might be a no brainer, but for someone who's still a bit apprehensive.